Elpis

by Aaron McGowan

  “I know,” Borely said. “I can’t help but be frustrated, though. Normally I’d just hit a pub for a few hours, but Lanek’s told me there isn’t a drop of liquor in this airship.”

  “You can get a drink when we’re at Setar,” Terico said. “Is that what you like to do though when not sailing the sea?”

  “Never a dull moment at the pub,” Borely said. “Usually a few games of chance for me to jump in on every time I visit. Luck might not be on my side outside the pub, but more often than not I’ve got a gift once I’m inside. And whether I win or lose, I always meet some interesting people.”

  It was certainly a different sort of life than Terico was used to, but he could understand Borely’s need to spend time having fun with people whenever he had the chance. If Borely transported cargo for most of his living, that would mean lots of long, lonely treks on his small ship.

  “I suppose you’ve met some interesting people here too, at least,” Terico said. “I’m sorry luck hasn’t been on your side, though.”

  “I’ll live,” Borely said. “And I intend to bounce back once I get to Setar. I can make Areo pay me back for my boat, and then be on my way.”

  Terico felt he should have seen this development coming, but it still sounded absolutely ridiculous. “You’re going to make Areo pay you for your boat?”

  “She deceived me,” Borely said. “It seems reasonable to me.”

  “You’ve got to get over it, Borely,” Terico said. “Vampires have to keep their identity hidden as best they can. People just don’t trust them.”

  “For good reason,” Borely said.

  “No,” Terico said. “I disagree. And even knowing your family was killed by vampires, I think you shouldn’t be judging Areo based on what others have done to you.”

  “You don’t get it!” Borely yelled, holding his hands out to the sides. He stared at Terico with his eyes wide and his teeth clenched for several seconds before continuing. “A vampire turned my brother into a vampire, and my brother killed my parents! And then I killed my brother! You can’t understand what that’s like! You understand the pain of death, but you can never understand the pain of having the blood of your own brother on your hands! And it’s all because of vampires that this endless torment has been forced upon me!”

  Borely took a couple deep breaths before continuing. “You think I should just get over it. You think I should just let go of this past and pretend everything’s fine. It’s not so simple. Every time I look at Areo now, I remember my brother. I see my brother as a vampire. I see myself shoving a blunt fishing knife into my brother’s heart. Again and again and again!”

  It took several long seconds of silence for Terico to believe Borely was finished. The man stood up tall and turned back to the window he had been looking out of before.

  “You’re right,” Terico said. “I don’t know how you feel. I never will, since I’ve never had any siblings... But the thing is, I don’t need to understand what you’re going through. I can’t fix these problems for you, so there isn’t much use in trying. But the fact is there’s nothing wrong with Areo and you know it. You’ll just have to let that settle in your head for a bit.”

  Terico turned and left, leaving Borely to decide how long he’d consider Terico’s words.

  Time was drawing near. It wouldn’t be long before the airship reached Setar, Lanek explained. Terico’s thoughts constantly turned to the Elpis stone, and he repeatedly found himself shifting the two pieces he had in his hands. Even without accessing the power of the Elpis, Terico could feel something strong in the stones. They carried a weight in them that didn’t exist in regular Nexi stones. They weren’t heavier, really—but there was something more to them.

  Terico walked around the bridge, past the two seats occupied by Lanek and Suran. In the far back corner of the room, Terico found Kitoh sitting on the hard metal floor. The boy sat cross-legged, and had a scared look on his face. Every now and then Kitoh would glance around when the airship shook a little more than usual, then take a deep breath once things returned to normal.

  “You going to make it?” Terico asked.

  Kitoh looked up and nodded slowly. “I hope so.”

  “You’ll probably be fine if the airship falls apart,” Terico said. “You can turn into a dragon and fly down to safety.”

  Kitoh looked down to the ground and held his breath. He looked absolutely terrified.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” Terico asked. “I am myself, I admit.”

  “It’s not that,” Kitoh said, his voice so soft Terico had to lean down a bit to hear him better. “I don’t want to turn into a dragon again...”

  “I see. It must be...” Terico struggled to find the right word.

  “Bloody amazing.” Lanek spun his chair around so he was facing them. “If I could turn into a dragon, I’d probably fly around and burn things every day.”

  “Which is probably why you don’t have that power and Kitoh does,” Terico said under his breath.

  “I have to say,” Lanek went on, “that you’re not what I expected from an eigni boy who could turn into a dragon. But I suppose this only makes you all the more endearing.”

  Suran turned her chair so she was facing Terico and Kitoh as well. She glanced to Lanek. “I doubt turning into a dragon is a simple matter. It might be painful... And it might be frightening.”

  “Dragons have no need to be frightened,” Lanek said. “They’re huge. They can fly. They breathe fire.”

  “They’re not invincible, either,” Terico said. He did see that Lanek had a point, but there was obviously more to Kitoh’s worries than the mere physical danger involved of fighting in general.

  “I’m not worried about dying,” Kitoh said, still looking to the ground. “Or getting hurt.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” Lanek asked.

  “It’s... the fact I can turn into a dragon,” Kitoh said. “I shouldn’t be able to.”

  “Why?” Terico asked. From what he understood, Kitoh was one of the most powerful eigni in Vursa—and certainly the most powerful one his age. And the fact Kitoh was the only one who fended off Ganto’s Nexi power was proof enough of his superior capabilities.

  “Very few eigni can do it,” Kitoh said. “And those that can... they’re all very powerful, very experienced adults. It’s... not right that I should be able to do this much. It’s wrong.”

  Terico wasn’t sure what he could say that would actually help Kitoh. The boy didn’t really want to be here in the first place. And Terico didn’t think there was anything Kitoh could really do other than accept the fact the boy had a great deal of power and use it as he deemed best.

  Suran walked over to Kitoh and sat down beside him. “I don’t really think this is a matter of right and wrong. Whether or not you have any great power, you can choose to do whatever you wish. But the fact you have a great power doesn’t mean anything about who you are. My brother and I are good with machinery, but that doesn’t define who we are. And even though we’re siblings, our personalities are actually rather different.”

  “Thankfully,” Terico said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being good at machinery,” Kitoh said. “As a dragon, I can hurt lots of people. I’m afraid.”

  “That’s good,” Lanek said. “There are grown men out there who have power, but don’t truly understand what that means. They have power and think that means they can do whatever they want.”

  Suran wrapped an arm around the back of Kitoh’s shoulders and smiled. “It’s okay to be afraid. I think we’ve all been worried lately. That’s perfectly normal.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight,” Kitoh said. “Everyone’s expecting me to, but I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “It’s all right,” Suran said. “When the time comes, I’m sure you’ll find the courage you’ll need.”

  Terico weighed his own feelings in his heart. He was deeply concerned for what was to come, of course. There was no telling what
the Brotherhood was planning at the moment.

  “We’ll all have to find that courage when the time comes,” Terico said.

  Terico felt he should be well past the stage of overcoming his fear of fighting Delkol and the Brotherhood. And yet there was still a piece of fear lodged deep in his heart.

  Perhaps it was just a sliver, but it was still there.

  9

  Clash in the Skies

  A few hours passed before Lanek directed everyone’s attention to the landscape ahead. Terico looked out the large window at the front of the bridge and found a city in the distance. It was difficult to see any individual buildings, including the royal castle where the king lived, and where an Elpis fragment presumably resided. Everyone looked out at the bright panorama, staring down in curious silence.

  Terico had gotten a little used to the sensation of being this high up in the air, so he let his gaze linger a little longer at the distant scene. There was a wide river that ran between the expanse of green hills, down through the city, and on past the farmlands below. The lines of crops were dizzying to look at for long, so Terico focused more on Setar, its grand structures slowly becoming a little more clear to the eye.

  “Amazing,” Suran said. “The very size of these buildings...”

  Terico thought it was all very impressive, but it had to be even more fascinating for someone like Suran, who was more knowledgeable in engineering. And in her case, she had only been outside of Edellerston on a few brief occasions in her life. Seeing the capital city would be a special event for her.

  “It’s certainly a large city,” Terico said. “It looks really chaotic from up here.”

  “To be expected,” Lanek said. “The castle and its surrounding premises are rather well organized, but there’s only so much that can be done for a city at large. Especially one as old and expansive as Setar.”

  “It has its own kind of beauty,” Suran said. “I don’t think I’d ever want to live in such a big city, but it is nice to visit.”

  “Poor time to visit it, though,” Lanek said. “If things don’t work out with Terico and the Elpis, we’ll probably be caught up in Delkol’s invasion.”

  Terico would have liked to assure that everything would work out, but there was no telling what Delkol had been up to since escaping Vursa.

  Areo, Kitoh, and Borely continued to look out the window in silence, each of them impressed by the view the airship offered. Terico hoped Kitoh would be up for whatever lay ahead, and that Areo and Borely would be able to handle things as well.

  Eventually Terico was able to make out the castle at the city’s center. It was a tall structure of dark red stone, portions of which were painted yellow or purple. It was encircled by six thin red towers that stood even taller than the castle, each of which were connected together by a deep brick wall. Further out, Terico spotted a portion of the river redirected to form a moat around the central portion of the city, which included the castle grounds as well as a great deal of the city’s larger buildings. Outside the protection of the moat were thousands of tiny wooden huts and patches of farmland—far too many for Terico to ever count.

  “Lanek, are you there?”

  It was a familiar voice, though it took Terico a moment to remember it belonged to Rilv, the head servant of the royal court.

  Lanek leaned back in his chair and slipped a teal Nexi stone from his pocket. “Good afternoon, madame.”

  “Scouts have reported four Brotherhood airships approaching the city from the east,” Rilv said. “Most of the royal fleet is away, gathering reinforcements from neighboring cities, and the remaining ships have been sabotaged by a double agent. It will take some time to get any of them in the air—I need you to hold off the airships in the meantime. Or simply take them down.”

  “Oh yes, how simple,” Lanek said. “Four airships against one that’s fortunate to even be airborne... Suddenly The Finest Hour takes on new meaning.”

  “So you can’t handle it then?” Rilv said.

  Lanek gripped the Nexi stone and sighed. “To be realistic...”

  “You have the tools necessary to achieve victory,” Rilv said. “Deal with those ships and I may accept your earlier proposition.”

  “Very well,” Lanek said. “I guess I’ll try then. Is there anything else?”

  “No,” Rilv replied. “If any airships get close to the castle, we will be able to launch Nexi stones at them. But I imagine the Brotherhood has a plan, as evident by the fact there is a traitor in our midst.”

  “Just leave it to me.” And with that, Lanek put the Nexi stone away and stood up to run the controls of the airship.

  He turned it toward the region east of the city, leading the airship toward a few dots in the sky that Lanek identified as the Brotherhood airships.

  “Delkol is probably on one of those ships,” Terico said.

  “Sounds likely,” Lanek said. “Everyone get ready—they’ll start firing at us as soon as we’re in range.”

  A part of Terico wanted to activate his Elpis stones and attack the airships himself, but he couldn’t be certain Delkol was on one of them. He didn’t want to exhaust himself and then be left vulnerable for when the time came to face Delkol.

  Suran sat down in her chair and moved it toward some of the controls about a meter from Lanek. She placed her hands above four different levers, which Suran had told Terico were used to control each of the four Nexi cannons equipped to the airship. There were many Nexi at her disposal, so as long as Lanek piloted the ship properly, Suran would be able to both attack and defend via her mental connection with the Nexi stones.

  “Two ships coming toward us,” Lanek said. “The other two are continuing toward the center of Setar.”

  Terico could see the city far below, and realized it would probably only take a few minutes for the Brotherhood ships to reach the castle at the speed they were going. Now that they were closer to Terico, he could see these airships were massive—several times larger than the one Suran and Lanek built. Great white dirigibles each with a thick, inverted black cross painted down their sides. The dark metal machinery of the jagged ships tied beneath the blimps hung menacingly, at least a half-dozen Nexi cannons hanging from each side of them.

  “One will attack while the other tries to slip past,” Suran said. “If Delkol can locate where Elpis pieces are, he’ll know Terico is here. They’ll try to board the ship to retrieve the Elpis.”

  “Everyone prepare to fight then,” Lanek said.

  “But what about those other two ships?” Borely asked. “They’re already getting away.”

  Lanek didn’t respond, and Terico wondered if he should go after them. Rilv said the city did have defensive measures, but the Brotherhood had to know that. They had to have a strategy in mind, and it left Terico uneasy. What was Delkol’s plan? Was he trying to lure Terico out of the airship? Perhaps Delkol was hoping Terico would go after those two airships.

  Kitoh ran out the bridge and down the hallway, gripping a couple bright Nexi in his fist.

  “Kitoh, wait!” Areo called. She turned and ran after him.

  “Hold on!” Borely yelled, running after her.

  Terico followed to find out what was going on. He chased Borely and Areo down the clanging hall and into the airship’s entry room. Kitoh forced up a lock at the very back of the room, then began sliding open the shaking metal doorway.

  “Stop!” Areo yelled.

  Kitoh turned back a moment, then leaped out of the door. He fell through the sky a couple seconds, then activated his Nexi stones. The boy turned into a great dragon, just as he had at Vursa—only this time he was flying. He would have been too large to fit in the airship’s entry room at this point, and was probably at least a quarter the size of the dirigible as a whole. Kitoh used his massive wings to turn himself around, then flew toward the doorway and maintained a speed similar to the airship’s.

  “I’ll go with you!” Areo yelled over the rushing winds. “Just drop me off at one o
f the airships, and I’ll take care of the Brotherhood!” Once Kitoh was close enough, Areo leaped out the door and landed atop the dragon’s back. She nearly stumbled over the other side, but managed to hold a strong, careful grip with her claws. Once secured, she situated herself so she sat against the front of the giant fin protruding from Kitoh’s back.

  Kitoh was about to take off, but Borely yelled out to them. “Hold on! I’m not letting you sneak away that easily!” Before Terico could stop him, Borely leaped out, arms and legs flailing in the air. He screamed at the top of his lungs, and for a moment it looked like he was going to miss the dragon entirely.

  Kitoh swerved to the left and dived down a bit to scoop Borely up with the back of his large, thick neck. Still screaming, Borely tumbled backward, pushed by the tumultuous winds. He crashed straight into Areo, who grabbed onto Borely and slid her way in front of him. She forced Borely to wrap his arms around her stomach to keep him from flying off into the air.

  “What are you thinking?” Areo screamed. “Are you insane?”

  “Someone has to watch you!” Borely yelled. “You’re too suspicious to be left alone at a time like this!”

  Terico could only make out a groan in Areo’s response, before Kitoh swooped down beneath the airship and flapped his giant batlike wings to propel himself forward. If Kitoh could drop Areo and Borely off at one of the two ships heading to the castle and then attack the other one himself, it would buy Suran and Lanek some time as they dealt with the other two ships.

  Terico shut and locked the doorway, then ran back to the bridge to watch the approaching Brotherhood airships. Suran still had her hands at the controls, while Lanek guided his airship to the best spot to take on the two enemy ships. The odds were against them, but Lanek said their ship would be faster and more dexterous than the giant Brotherhood dirigibles. Terico knew though that in the end, it would come down to his skill with the Elpis stone. Delkol was seeking it, and a final battle was certain to ensue in some form.