Bliss

by Daniel Lawley

  “May the three have grace!”

  “Praying at a time like this!” The Alderman commented.

  “There's no time!” He replied, suffice to say in the eyes of such devilment it was not difficult to hope the gods existed too in the name of balance. “I'll get the girl to safety.”

  “What about the village?”

  “Look around you, it's gone, I'm sorry, get as many as you can away. This is goodbye!”

  “Fine, follow me.” As they made their way with haste snapping at their heels, the Alderman stopped to instruct another man to get people evacuated as all hell descended around them. The engines made their way through the village, cutting to ribbons all whom they could with the biting blade of slick cutlass. “Run!” He commanded. Arlandus thought better of making a quick comment and did as he was bade, for once thinking it the wiser of choices. They approached a small building on the outskirts of the town, ignoring the destruction about them, focused upon one singular task. Stepping inside they found the main room darkened.

  “Armatrine!” commanded the Alderman. “Have no fear it's only I, Uncle Will!”

  “Uncle Will?” mewed a sweet voice from within. “I'm scared.”

  “I know sweetie, I know, yet have no fear, be brave for the three have sent you a great knight to guide you to protection.” The girl eyed Arlandus, seemingly unimpressed. “Go with him now and get to safety” he instructed. “We’ll find you again later” he lied.

  She looked unsure yet took his hand at the Alderman’s prompt.

  “I stand by what I said, you’re a good man Will” Arlandus assured.

  “I know, now go,” he responded. Arlandus did not need to be told twice as he stole the child to safety in the dead of the most dangerous night. Neither he, nor she, dared to look behind as they ran. Neither he nor she dared to mention the heat of the burning village almost blistering the skin of their backs. Nor of the stench of acrid smoke as it filled their nostrils.

  ~Of Things Emboldened~

  Fire and terror shall relight from above

  Bringing fear to an end

  All must burn and the ship must come

  But one may yet find safety, in the arms of the Three’s embrace

  - Ancient order prophecy

  The Alderman clung to his loved ones in the way that only a man inflicted by a profound fear of imminent death may. Not the kind of death so often heard about where an elderly and unwell relative passes away from the world, surrounded by their family, content with a lifetime of achievement and a job well done. Nay, this be but death in its bloody type, murderous, rampaging and untimely. The regretful woe of a story cut short, a final sudden verse left longing for refrain as chords reach an unexpected stop. For this is the death that men fear most and upon this night it had visited in spades.

  He felt warm in the loving, protecting embrace of his mother and father, the boy. Yet that was all he felt, knowing that at any given moment the attackers could come and end them all. Although he was much too young to realise it consciously, something innate and primal in himself recognised that protection from people entirely powerless to do anything against that which they are so afraid of exposing one to, usually offers little to no protection at all. So he sat, on the deck below the main, with the people he'd known his entire life as they awaited their turn, knowing time was short and growing shorter by the second and treasuring the musty taste of each breath, for it may be the last.

  Around them, everyone he'd known who was not his family did the same, the ones left living anyway. In the orange flare of burning candle light a sinister crimson crept. A trickling stream through the boards of the deck above, rich and thick the blood loss pooled. Filled with the refrain of life now perished. He’d listened to their wails from above and the gargling sound of the reaper’s approach in a throat now cut, gasping for its last above the clouds on the deck of the great airship. It would not be long now until one more was taken. Dragged as a deadweight or willing and falsely brave. It mattered not, never to be seen again, the knees of all quaked with the anticipation of the end and the afterwards.

  In the orange light, with the stench of coming death encroaching upon his nostrils, caressing what would soon be its own he contemplated how he would meet this cruel fate laid before him. Would he wail in fear as they took him to his doom, or rise as a champion above all in dignity and beyond reproach. No calls of coward from his honour to himself. Likely he'd have little say in the matter, clutched in the ever loving embrace of a father and a mother who would do all they could with bravado to save his life he would be passed between them and protected, afforded the longevity of a few moments more before the swing of the sword upon him and the momentary piercing pain before all went to black.

  Footsteps upon the stair, he came. The fierce sky-sailor with the hat, a black velveteen tricorn, and a single shot pistol. The barrel of black iron which was ever so slightly rusted in reaction to humidity and protest at years of mistreatment.

  Without warning he rose. The man with the crooked smile and eyes which listened more than they saw. Without a word he remained in the orange glow, cracking his knuckles one by one in the heat of the candlelight. Darkness over him, he glared at the door guard to the chamber in which they were held. Defiantly, triumphantly, as if he now stood in a tale of all his own making. With the softest of footsteps padding upon the wooden deck he charged, as quick as a lightning bolt from the trident of an ancient and forgotten god. The guard, taken by surprise drew his cutlass, razor sharp and dripping with murderous intent. It flashed once as the brave fool approached, again and he fell, in two pieces upon the deck, organs and blood pooling where his legs should have found themselves but now did not. His face a grimace twisted with agony and vitriol. Hatred carved in the lines of his brow as he bled and died before them. Blood pooled below his corpse and spread, swishing with the motion of the vessel as it rocked upon air currents.

  His mother held him tighter, despite the coming onslaught. The footsteps grew closer, as they had dozens of times before, fear incarnate upon the stairs.

  “Next!” He ordered the Alderman and his family up. None moved, frozen in terror. To say the man stood before them was ugly would be an understatement. His callused skin hung loose with barnacles upon barnacles. Around the top of his balding head a ring of white curling fur, thinning and uneven. He wore a patched beard, unable to extend to a rich full crop, it limped and clung to his face as though it had almost given up on itself. He was fat, not obese, simply out of condition beyond his years and about him he carried the stench of too many nights drunk and not enough bathing. A meaty fist met the Alderman’s face, knocking him to his back. Spitting blood upon the deck from a cracked tooth he rose, defiant anger in his eyes. His mother wailed and held him tighter. “All of you!” He ordered. Shocked, she rose, reacting before she'd a chance to understand what she was doing.

  “Please sir, leave the boy! He's just a child! He's done nothing, innocent, innocent” his father pled through his quickly swelling face.

  “I said all!” Roared the sky-pirate herding his mother toward the stair. His father followed naturally to protect his wife and the boy was dragged too. Pushed along, yet he felt unafraid of encroaching death. Bravery had usurped all fear.

  Once shepherded roughly upward through the narrow stairway his eyes grew wide and lungs full in union. He'd never been upon the deck of a real pirate ship before and the sight of it filled him with wonderment and bemusement at every point he looked. He knew not the name of this vessel yet to say she were beautiful would be an insult, for in his eyes she was spectacular. And the air. The clean, rich air above the clouds of Neta. He wondered if he'd ever tasted anything so sweet.

  The ship herself, stained in rich mahogany, shone with the reflection of the rising sun. Above her deck flew three large mainsails in emerald green. Two minor sails in the same shade and one upon the back for steering. Above them floated her main balloon, buoyed and inflated by a rich and powerful engine. The grind of
cogs and gears below fascinated him.

  Upon the observation deck he stood. Her captain. Taller than any man naturally held the right to be he towered above those around him. He wore his beard at a short crop and upon his head he wore a tricorn of black leather. About his body a rich, black doublet to match the hat, emblazoned with deep gold at the edges and seams. Richly decorated buttons hung steadfast in place as the coat flapped steadily in the breeze. He wore a partially open shirt and black leather breeches. Light yet warm enough for a life above the clouds.

  “Master Boson, set them upon the plank,” he ordered. To the boy’s surprise the voice of their main accoster seemed that of a man well educated, well spoken and well placed within society. As if he'd spent enough time around nobility to fashion himself a shade of it.

  They found themselves bound, at the wrists and feet. Held at the point of cutlass by his crew, a pack of scurvy dogs if ever the boy had seen them.

  “Now walk!” The captain smiled. Neither his mother or father made any movement.

  “Master Boson” he purred. At his order the curved sickle blade of the Boson’s terrible sword became thrust toward them. At the pointed end of his gesture they had no choice and began to move, creeping slow motions across the deck toward the plank. Impatiently he thrust again almost cutting into the boy’s mother.

  “Now, now Boson, we have all the time in the world, let's have a little patience, in the name of love.” He smiled tenderly, mock concern across his face. He felt a tremble in his mother. Her legs and back once steadfast in their strength and resolve now shook with the fear of the imminent. They continued to shuffle forth, prepared to topple from their perch to avoid the sword for even a moment longer.

  “I think I'll give you one chance Alderman” he smiled, “for I see the fear in the eyes of your wife and child, and being a man of such heart as I am, feel loath to send many more this night to the mercy of gravity’s pull”. The deck crew laughed at his false mercy, cruel to the plight of those before them.

  A sudden shriek pierced the sky, pulling all from contemplation of the current torture. His mother? No, naval cannons? Too high pitched…then he saw it. A shadow at first among the clouds. A drake, darkened silhouette yet a monster still. It swooped and circled in the atmosphere below, excited by the stench of fear and the offer of human flesh. It swam with grace and ease, a predator in its natural habitat. Then it surfaced, only momentarily, to reveal the horror of what it was. To say this creature held grace in its movements would be an understatement, for the way it swam through the sky was beautiful, yet if beauty were to be found here, coupled to this creature, that is all of it that would be found, for it was fearsome. Its hide he saw was coated with thick metallic scales, sturdier than any armor he'd ever been fortunate enough to see. Razor claws longer than temple towers sprang from its legs at the fore and rear. Its face and mouth he saw to be covered in the red gore of men. It had been feasting well this night. It gave a roar, rampant and wild. This was its domain, it was top predator here, as it roared its stench filled their nostrils, rotting corpses, digesting men and alchemical decay. He held his vomit down.

  “Raise her!” Ordered the captain, at his command the crew set about their work, stoking the engines and increasing the sail speed. He noticed the ship increase in altitude steeply.

  The captain turned to the family, stood aloft the plank in the trembling cold. “Cloud drake rarely fly above eight hundred leagues and can't survive below three” he assured. “Now where was I? Ah yes, one chance Alderman and your family may live on yet, one chance and we may end this night less more innocent bloodshed, how does that be sounding to ye?”

  “I-i it sounds like an accord could be struck.” Answered his father. Terror emanating from his eyes as they darted from the captain to his son and back.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Captain Afton Orochi and this here be the Stormkite”.

  “Impossible!” His father spat. “Orochi is dead!”

  “Improbable,” conceded the captain, “yet not impossible, there have been many Orochi's over the years and many Stormkite's. Yet I promise you, I am the one and only true Orochi, and this here be the one true kite, all others be a pale imitation of this here glory”.

  The boy’s curiosity Was piqued at the name of the vessel. Legendary were her captain and crew as the most fearsome pirates to sail the sky’s high tides.

  “So, I am Orochi and I am offering you one chance, just one,” he nodded, “yes, to save your family and make good on your fatherly duties, sounds good, no?”

  “Yes” his father confirmed.

  “All you must do is give me some information, I am a man on a quest, an adventurer, searching for something and you must tell me Alderman, what it is that I must know.” He whispered now, tenderly as if not entirely unsympathetic to the situation he himself had put the family in.

  “What is it that you want to know?” His father asked, broken by the weight of his own fear and love.

  “Ok, so I need information about the Order of the Pearl, more specifically about the whereabouts of a particular item they left to your care only a short decade ago, perhaps less, agreeable yes?”

  The boy’s blood turned cold at the mention of the Order, to betray them was not only death, it was eternal damnation away from the light of the three. He thought of the man who'd visited Laan only that day, it seemed an eternity ago. An Order monk, did the pirate want the girl?

  “I can tell you…”

  “Father no, you know you can’t betray the Order, you can’t you can’t” he protested.

  “Shut it boy! I'll do what I can!” He'd never seen him like this before, yet throwing away one’s faith in the face of death felt foolhardy and strange.

  “The one he seeks is with the Order now, and we know not where that is.”

  “Do ye not?”

  “Nay I do not” answered the Alderman sadly.

  “Where is the map?” Orochi demanded coolly. At his words the boson prodded his cutlass into the boy’s ribs.

  “The map is where it belongs, in the hands of the Order on its way to the capital!” The Alderman broke, fear over his face, for that of his son and his own mortal soul.

  “The capital” Orochi smiled with ease revealing perfect white teeth. “The task becomes simpler yet, Boson, do your work!” He snapped, a sudden shift in his demeanour. At his command the man holding them at sword point above their death smiled and began to swish his sword menacingly toward them in the air.

  “Wait!” Screamed his father as he shuffled toward the end of the plank. “You promised!” The beast below roared with waiting anticipation.

  Orochi stopped and turned back to the Alderman, menace and cruelty alive and dancing in his gaze. “I did. So choose your son, or your wife”. He smiled with mock concern. “Embrace the power of choice Alderman!”

  “Of course Jak, Jak lives!” He blustered tears breaking his stoic expression as he grasped his wife's hand. She only smiled, trembling yet content with his choice.

  “Boson! Free the boy, he's to come with us.” Ordered the captain. Slightly disappointed the boson began to untie his skinny frame.

  “Never, I'll never come with you!” The boy could only protest.

  “Then die, the choice is simple and it's yours to make, but we shan’t spend all night deliberating it” Orochi snapped.

  “You come now!” The boson roared, grasping his arm and pulling him from the plank in one motion while pushing the Alderman and his wife with the other. Sending them tumbling to the waiting arms of fate below.

  He did not see them die, his parents, yet sensed their presence disappear as he was pulled to safety. Orphaned and alone upon a ship among the clouds with nowhere to turn for comfort or companionship.

  “What shall we do with this one cap’n?” The boson gestured to the defeated, limply hanging form of the boy, now slumped over his arm.

  “Lock him in the brig, a few days with naught but the cries of drakes and the darkness ou
ght be enough to bring anybody to their senses”!

  So it was.

  ~Qesa, Neta’s capital city~

  ~First of the Smith, Song of Joy~

  First in line to nothing,

  Second to an inheritance of air.

  They will rise amongst themselves.

  Their coming heralds a new age.

  - Order of the Pearl, Writings Of The First Masters