Spellbreaker

by Blake Charlton

  Their climb slowed. Soon they would stall. Francesca intended to keep her claws in the airship until the instant before it struck water.

  Then she saw another airship diving out of the eastern sky. Though the newcomer stretched three times longer, she was clearly written in homage to the Queen’s Lance: a slender hull, a baffling array of aft and foresails. There was one frightening difference. Whereas the foresails of the Queen’s Lance were spell-stiffed silk, the long curving foresails of this ship crackled with what seemed to be lightning.

  Francesca craned her neck to get a better look. Her grip loosened as their barrel rolls slowed.

  “Francesca!” Someone shouted over the wind. A strained voice. Something familiar about it.

  Francesca tightened her claws and brought her head back. Standing atop the airship’s hull, his green robes interwoven with the ship’s fabric, stood a lone hierophant pulling off his veil. Francesca tensed to strike.

  The man pulled off his veil to reveal a handsome face, short gray beard. His turban came free and his curly hair tossed in the breeze. “Francesca!”

  Snarling, Francesca leaned forward until her snout was only feet away from the man. The Queen’s Lance stalled and for a moment, they hung still and silent in the air.

  The man glared at her with fierce, light brown eyes. The sun and wind had written their passage in wrinkles around his eyes. He was older now, more careworn. Cyrus Alarcon had been Air Warden of Avel, and Francesca’s lover, when she had escaped from and then destroyed the demon Typhon.

  They began to fall.

  “You can’t win,” Cyrus yelled and pointed off toward the approaching airship. “That’s the Empress, Vivian’s flagship. She’s made from fifty miles of silk and five deconstructed deities of storm and lightning. She was written to hunt air demons during the War of Disjunction. When the war’s over, she’ll hunt dragons.”

  They were falling faster now, the wind rushing past. Francesca’s draconic heart filled with the hot need to attack. It would be so easy. A quick snap of the jaws …

  But memories of intimacy checked her.

  Cyrus met her gaze. “Give up; it’s the only way you’ll survive.”

  Francesca looked at the massive airship, now only a mile away and falling fast toward her. Jagged lightning leapt between her foresails where a sphere of white light was gathering. Francesca snarled at Cyrus.

  The Queen’s Lance began to spin as they fell. The wind blew Cyrus’s hair back and away. The hardness around his eyes had softened. He was watching her now with pity, a hunter’s sudden sadness for the beautiful beast he will destroy. This expression, more than she would have thought possible, filled Francesca with fear. “Please, Fran. Save yourself.”

  A jagged vein of light tore through the air not ten feet above her head. Reticular veins of lightning branched off and struck Francesca’s wingtips and tail. Pain coursed through her. The instantaneous thunderclap seemed to shatter the world. To Francesca’s mind it was a blast of jagged blue-and-black sound. Her foreclaws lost their grip and her wings slackened.

  The Empress drew closer. Lightning crackled along her foresails.

  After recovering, Francesca kicked with her hind legs, pushing herself away from the Queen’s Lance. But as when a man jumps off a raft, the lighter airship flew backward and she remained almost stationary. So she flew hard toward the city.

  Francesca saw that she had no visible wounds, but years of fighting storm neodemons had taught her that lightning left a trail of burned tissue as it coursed through flesh. Francesca’s draconic body, though textual, was in grave danger.

  Another bolt of dazzling energy filled the air, this time below Francesca. An instant later came the blue-black sound of the thunderclap. Francesca worked her wings harder. She was only two hundred feet from the harbor. She hazarded a look back and saw that the Queen’s Lance was climbing into formation on the Empress’s wing.

  The implications of the situation flashed through Francesca’s mind. If Lotannu had brought the empress’s flagship to Ixos, he would have a plan to ensure the empress’s safety. That indicated a massive imperial force. But how could such a force have reached the archipelago unnoticed by the Ixonian pantheon? The war deities alone should have been sent into fits by warships flying over their islands.

  For that matter where were the God-of-gods damned war deities of Chandralu? Shouldn’t there be hordes of gods spitting fire or hurling boulders at the imperial airships?

  A bolt of lightning shot over Francesca’s head. This time, one of the branches of energy struck her wingtip and sent agony racing down her body. The world dissolved into blindness, pain, a thunderclap.

  An instant later, she found herself falling toward the bay and only with great effort managed to regain her wings. Now she was certain, the lightning burns had damaged her draconic body so badly it would soon deconstruct itself and return her to her human form. In most circumstances, such a transformation would save her life; however, flying half a mile above the bay was not one such circumstance.

  Francesca worked her wings harder. Chandralu had come alive. A conflagration lit up the Palm Steps where the Queen’s Lance’s cannon fire had landed. She hoped Nicodemus and Leandra were safe. The smoke above the fire was forming a tight dome. Some civic god was weaving a net of air around the flames, trying to suffocate them before they spread.

  Red cloaks ran up and down the Palm Steps, across the terraces near the Wind Temple, and across the docks. Among them were figures that shone with light of different hues. Here were Chandralu’s war deities, marshaling the city’s forces but confused as to what was attacking them. Perhaps they were not even sure if they were under attack. Then Francesca knew there would be no help from the Ixonian pantheon. At least not soon enough. They had no idea of her danger. Indeed, many of the weaker deities would not even perceive her draconic body. The next lightning strike would kill her.

  Francesca’s heart rebelled. She couldn’t die, not while there was so much left to do, not while her husband was so vulnerable, not while her daughter still hated her.

  Another searing bolt arched overhead. Another blue-black thunderclap. Francesca dove and then banked hard left, then down again and right, hoping to avoid her death for just a few moments longer. The Empress was almost on top of her. The pain in Francesca’s wings confused her thoughts, blunted her will. Not long now and she would become a woman naked, weak, falling through liquid sky.

  A lightning bolt shot down to her right and hit a galley in the harbor. The thunderclap followed moments after. Francesca was gasping now. Her confused thoughts turned to the first dragon. Nearly forty years ago, Typhon had written that creature and Fellwroth had set it to attack Trillinon. Wounded by the city’s spellwrights, the first dragon had dashed itself into the city and set it aflame. Francesca wondered if now she, the third dragon on the New Continent, was racing toward a city that would soon burn.

  She craned her neck and saw the sphere of light burning between the Empress’s foresails. This was it then. At this range the airship could not miss. The killing bolt blazed, dropped.

  But as the forked bolt fell, it seemed to strike something, or rather something seemed to strike it. The lightning arced away and into the city. In the next instant, the bolt shot back from the city to the Empress. A double thunderclap hit Francesca with percussive force.

  With a few wingbeats more, Francesca flew over the docks. That she still drew breath seemed incredible. From below came the shouts of sailors, soldiers, gods as they assembled on the quay.

  Forcing her agonized wings to fly her up along the Jacaranda Steps, Francesca looked back to see to her amazement that one of the Empress’s foresails had gone slack. The whole airship had entered into a slow downward spiral. As she watched, the array of aft sails reconfigured, righting the ship and pointing her bow upward, breaking the spiral to fly over the harbor.

  The sphere of light blazed from the airship’s remaining foresails and an instant later an arc of lightning
leapt from the ship out and down into the city. But as the lightning branched, Francesca saw defined against the sky an identical but opposite forked bolt leap up from the city to strike the ship. However, this was not an arc of light but one of complete blackness. It was inverse lightning, black lightning.

  An instant after the white lightning struck the city, it reversed course and flew back along the path cut by the black lightning until it struck the Empress. A yellow sunburst erupted from the airship’s bow and she spun downward.

  Francesca realized that the black lightning had originated from the Jacaranda Slope district, about halfway down the Utra Way, where her family compound stood. Curiosity overpowered Francesca’s pain and exhaustion. Who or what could have cast the black lightning? Some storm god of war? A goddess of lightning?

  Though she could feel her draconic body beginning to deconstruct, Francesca forced herself to stay aloft. Every wingbeat was agony, but she flew up the Jacaranda Steps and along the Utra Way. To the east, the Empress was retreating toward the bay.

  Francesca’s wings gave out a hundred yards away from the compound. Her body shaking, she touched her hind legs down on the cobblestones and landed awkwardly on her foreclaws. But she was too weak. She flopped forward, her shoulder breaking cobblestones and digging a gash into the red earth.

  The world faded away. There followed brief, vivid dreams of thunderheads over blue waters and memories of the rolling yellow foothills of her Verdantine childhood home. That had been centuries ago, but it felt … it felt …

  Pain returned as pulses through a body that was so much smaller, so much weaker. Groaning, she moved her thin arms and legs, pathetic compared to the glory she had been. The ground beneath her was warm, muddy. Someone was saying her name.

  At last Francesca opened her eyes. A man was crouching beside her. Of course it was him. “Nico?” she croaked.

  He took her hand. “You’re safe. The airships haven’t returned.”

  She was still lying in the gash her draconic body had made in Utra Way. She was naked but someone had laid a blanket over her. Now more self-conscious, she realized a crowd had gathered around Nicodemus. His followers stood close, as did Ellen and the twins.

  “Who was it?” Francesca asked. “Who turned the airship? A lightning god? A storm goddess?”

  “No…” Nicodemus said softly and then looked up to someone standing at Francesca’s feet. At first she couldn’t make the woman out, her vision was still blurry. Francesca sat up and squinted. “Who are you?”

  “I am not so sure that I know anymore.”

  “Lea?”

  “I wouldn’t swear to it just now.”

  “But how did you do it?”

  “Dhrun kept the godspell that the smuggler sold us. It manipulates the attention of a deity. When I woke on the way to the pavilion and he explained what was happening, I had him cast the spell on me.” She looked up at the sky again. “That airship was written from deconstructed parts of deities. The spells that aimed the ship’s lightning were drawn from the part of a goddess’s mind that directed her attention. So it was susceptible to misdirection. I confused the ship into throwing the lightning so that it returned from me to strike the ship. It isn’t a mistake they will make twice.”

  “I’m grateful they made it once,” Nicodemus said as he more securely wrapped the blanket around Francesca and helped her stand. “Let’s get inside.”

  Francesca’s human legs felt weak but she did not seem to be wounded. In fact, other than fatigue and nausea, her strength seemed to be returning. The contact with Nicodemus was helping; Typhon had written her to draw strength from his cacographic abilities. Their first touch had enabled her to achieve her draconic form.

  As they started toward the compound, Francesca looked over at her daughter. Leandra looked back with a peculiar expression. Her mouth was pursed slightly, her eyes hooded.

  “You saved me from the airship,” Francesca said.

  “You saved me from the smuggler’s ambush.”

  “I guess…” Francesca struggled for the words, resisted the urge to reach out and touch her daughter. “All this time I thought that if anyone was going to kill me…”

  “You shouldn’t have doubted it, Mother. I might have tried to kill you before. I might even try again. But I’ll be damned before I let anyone else get away with it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Nicodemus waited impatiently as Captain Kekoa of the red cloaks explained his strategy for preventing imperial spies from causing more bloodshed that night.

  Nicodemus had trouble listening. The empire had already made its covert play and failed. Their next attack would be massive and beyond the ability of a few hundred red cloaks to prevent. Nevertheless, the city needed policing and Nicodemus needed Kekoa’s good regard. So he tried to look attentive as the captain rattled off patrol schedules.

  When the man fell silent, Nicodemus said, “Very good, Captain. I agree wholeheartedly. Now, if you could excuse me, I must see to my lady wife and daughter.” He turned and climbed the pavilion’s stairs. Rory and Sir Claude fell in beside him and they hurried through dark hallways. Servants and guards stepped quickly out of their way.

  They came to the compound’s tearoom, the windows of which looked out on a nighttime city illuminated with torches. Martial law had been declared and additional fortifications were being built on the docks and city walls.

  In the middle of the room stood a long, low table. Darkness seemed to lean in on the few, flickering kukui lamps. Somehow the cook had found time to lay out a traditional Ixonian tea service: a steaming brass teapot, glass bottles of rice wine and kava, porcelain cups.

  Leandra and Francesca knelt at the table and stared out at the city. Even in the room’s dim light, Nicodemus was struck by how similar they looked: fair skin, pretty faces, freckles, wide brown eyes. Mother and daughter. Behind each woman stood her followers. The lamplight shone on the eyes of Leandra’s four-armed wrestling god, who was staring at his daughter with protective concern. Nicodemus allowed himself a moment of pride that she inspired such loyalty.

  Nicodemus took a place at the table and looked from his daughter to his wife. Francesca was composed, tension around her eyes. Leandra, on the other hand, was at ease. Her gaze wandered, as if she were distracted.

  “So,” Nicodemus said, “what happened?”

  Oddly Francesca looked to Leandra and then flicked her gaze to Holokai, who seemed to return a knowing look.

  Leandra spoke plainly. “I had been cultivating a relationship with a smuggler of imperial godspells. I met with him tonight to try to make him my spy. Instead he nearly killed me. It turns out that he himself was an imperial spy.”

  “Not just a spy,” Francesca said. “But Lotannu Akomma.” She described Lotannu’s narrow escaped from her attack and the subsequent appearance of the airships. “Since then, my officers have reported that the wind mages killed near the Lesser Sacred Pool all have the perfect circle tattoo on their hips.”

  “The same tattoo that we found on the bodies on Feather Island?” he asked.

  It was Leandra who answered. “The tattoo was also on those who have been attacking minor deities. Now it makes sense why those who attacked the minor deities were so often unsuccessful. We thought the thugs were underestimating the strength of the deities, but it was the other way around. They are imperials. In the empire, under Aunt Vivian’s metaspells, spellwrights are much more powerful. Their initial attacks were too weak because they hadn’t yet adjusted to how weak they would be within your metaspell.”

  “But why attack minor deities at all?” Francesca asked. “It doesn’t weaken the league significantly and it made them liable to discovery.”

  “There are rumors of a divine sickness spreading through the minor deities,” Leandra replied. “Supposedly the Banyan god was deconstructed by it, and I witnessed the pitiful god Baruvalman suffer from it. When I touched Baru, he nearly came apart. The street rumor is that the divine sickness i
s from a demon who is out on the bay, but I see Aunt Vivian’s hand in it.”

  Nicodemus understood. “You think the imperial spellwrights have brought to Ixos whatever spell it is they use to deconstruct their own deities?”

  Leandra nodded. “I think Lotannu was mining godspells from our deities before attacking us. It would empower his authors and provide godspells to sell to me while he pretended to be a smuggler.”

  “And why, under the fiery heaven,” Nicodemus asked, “were you trying to buy godspells you thought were smuggled out of the empire?”

  “To better fulfill my role as a Warden of Ixos.”

  Francesca shifted in her seat. “Was there another role you were also trying to fulfill?”

  For the first time, something like surprise moved across Leandra’s expression. She narrowed her eyes at her mother. “What do you mean?”

  Francesca didn’t reply.

  Nicodemus frowned. “Tell me what is going on.”

  After a tense moment, Francesca spoke. “It was only a question. I agree with Lea. If the empire could prey upon weaker deities, it would cause many to lose faith. Without prayer, our pantheon cannot protect us. There is also the matter of why Lotannu should be willing to sell godspells to Lea.”

  Leandra grimaced. “He was setting me up. I did not realize, but he had manipulated a prophetic godspell that he sold me. He edited the spell so that it would blind me to certain futures. I stepped into his trap. If not for Mother, I would be bound and censored on some imperial airship right now.”

  “Without you, Lea, I would now be skewered on the foresails of the empress’s flagship. We saved each other.”

  Leandra pursed her lips and sat a little straighter.

  Francesca continued. “I wonder if Lotannu wasn’t also trying to undermine the league by empowering you with the godspells.”

  “What do you mean?” Leandra asked flatly.

  “It’s no secret that we don’t get along. If Lotannu strengthened you when there is something about which we disagree…”