by S G Dunster
Kneeling at her side, knobby hand resting on the bench next to her, was Hans. Disheveled, his hair hanging on the sides of his face, coat puddled around his knees, sleeves ragged, he stared up at her face with a hunger and a sort of pleading—a wild, painful joy that sent a thrill of sympathetic pain through me.
Eap stood behind the piano, watching, his face sober, the corners of his mouth turned down. He saw us across the way, nodded, and raised his right arm.
Lil swallowed, hard, and nodded back.
With a great deal of reluctance, Eap snapped his thick fingers.
The piano was gone. The girl was gone. The bench was gone, and Hans tumbled to the ground on all fours. Trembling, he looked at his hands, looked over at Eap. Snarled, showing his long uneven teeth, and flew at him.
And there they were, Hans and Eap, rolling on the saloon floor of an airship.
I didn’t stop to think. The rage chased through my blood again, and there I was on the stage with them. I grabbed Hans by the hair and kicked him in the middle of the chest. Eap stepped back, gasping and cursing. “Don’t,” he said sharply as I brought the pen out of my pocket. I don’t know why it’s the thing I went for, but I grabbed it like a weapon and pressed it to Hans’ chest, right over his heart.
Hans went still. His eyes grew wide and he looked down at it—the black shard of wood, the rusty metal point pressed there, piercing his robe, leaching a halo of blood red ink . . . or maybe it was blood.
“Do it quickly,” he said, his voice hoarse. “And before you bury me, please check I am, in fact, dead.”
These words hit me harder than the icy water he’d tried to drown me with. “You . . . can’t die,” I said.
“That pen,” Eap said carefully, biting out the consonants, “is from the crust. Firm. It will, in fact, pierce flesh and stop a heart.”
“But you said— “
“It won’t bring permanent death,” Eap said impatiently. “Hans would never accept that reality. But flesh still displaces flesh.” His gaze lanced through Hans. “No, death here is not permanent. But there who desire to, can deliver the pain of death to them. And a suffocating burial.”
I threw Hans away and clutched the pen so tight I could feel the wood give a little. “I’m not going to kill you,” I growled at Hans. “Of course I’m not. Stupid. Man.” I shoved him with the last two words, and turned my back on him. “Where are the coal boys? The men down below on shift? Call them up.” I looked up to the entrance of the salon, now fifty feet above where I stood because of the sloped landscape of chairs that made this theater. Where was this room, then? Dipping into the engine room? An anomaly of space?
One of my serving girls was there at the entrance, long, bare legs gleaming. I snapped my finger. “Bring me the shift manager,” I shouted. “Bring me the pilot. Bring me Arapahoe. We’ve got a man to put in the cage.”
“I won’t be caged,” Hans rasped. “You’d better kill me. I prefer death. It was wise, after all, to bring the two of you here. You have the courage to do what others won’t.”
At this Eap stood up suddenly. He threw his hands out, and a burst of vines erupted from the spot in the floor where the piano had been. Roses. Only not the kind Hans had put in his vase—whorls of petal and color, perfect and velvet. No, these were wild roses; soft, pink, five-petaled, with gold centers. They grew and spread over the stage.
Hans went dead-pale and scooted out of their way. He slid to the ground, shaking.
“You were not right,” Eap said. “Can you not admit wrong, man? Have you not made enough wrecks? Repent, you old fool.” Eap sat next to Hans, cross-legged, and rubbing the back of his own head. “Look it in the face. Accept it. Burn. Hurt.”
Hans met his eyes. “I prefer comfort,” he said quietly. “And will.”
Eap glared. “She’s still alive, damn you! Your rose is still alive! You mourn her, you carry the burden of her death, and she’s still living!”
“She’s as good as dead,” Hans replied, breaking eye contact, rising, and turning away. “Worse than dead, Edgar. You’ve seen her. Scavenging like an animal. Ribs like rails. Clothing hanging ragged. Fangs. They’ve given her fangs. They keep her alive only to torment me.”
Suddenly, I understood.
“Rose,” I said. “Rose. That’s not her real name. Jenny. It’s Jenny.”
“Only I call her that,” Hans rasped, moisture gleaming down his cheekbones.
It made sense now. Puzzle pieces fitting together.
He’d brought her here. Jenny. Tried to make her his. But she didn’t want to be his. Jenny—she was nobody’s. She ran from him . . . and now the Grimms were trying to take her. They were using her. She was the hold they had over Hans.
Eap had made her—whole, complete, as she was—to lure Hans here.
She’d rebelled. She’d walked away from him. She’d wanted to get away, just like I did.
“Take your medicine, old man!” Eap shouted, startling me out of my angry, dark thoughts. “You’ve brought these two here,” he gestured to me and Lil. “And now there’s four, Hans. Four. The four of us. Five with Rose. And we’ve got no place to go back to unless we defeat them. With them between us and home . . . no beast fights more savagely than when you stand between them and their hole. The weight has fallen to our side. With the four of us— “
“The four of us,” Hans cut in, his voice sharp and cold as the ice he’d nearly impaled me with, “are chaff, blown in the wind of the Grimms’ tellings. Do not think yourself more than that, and they might spare you. Fight, and we’ll be mown down.” His gaze moved over me, rested on Lil. He covered his face with one hand. “I didn’t mean for this,” he murmured. “I was lonely and stupid. A stupid old man. And now I’ve brought another innocent to damnation.” He stood slowly and walked toward the door. “I shall leave you, and perhaps we will prevail a while longer if we don’t do anything more to attract their ire.”
“Shut it,” Eap roared, grabbing at his hair. “Stopper your sanctimonious platitudes, you whited sepulcher. Stand and fight! We’ve got nothing left to lose! Two old men who’ll become blyks, no matter. But here, look.”
He stood, darted over to me, and grabbed my arm, thrusting me forward so I went, stumbling into Hans’ path to the door. “Young blood. New stories. Already, Hans, already, these two have wrong-footed our enemies. We’ve dodged the blyks three times! We have hidden from them and are still whole and contained in our flesh. Look.”
He pulled the patch off his eye, tossed it to the ground. “I have given my flesh to the blyks already. How many more pieces can I spare? On my own, I’ll wander and disappear. And so shall you. You know it’s true. You go to this fate, hoping it will be some sort of atonement, but friend, listen.” He ran to him, grabbed his coat, and shook Hans so his head bobbed on his frail neck, his hands scrambling for purchase. “Rose lives. Fool, your Rose, she lives. We. Can. Still. Save her.” He let go of Hans and stepped back. “And we can save ourselves, too.”
Panting, the two men narrowly studied each other. “I am tired,” Hans said, finally.
“Then sleep.” Eap shook his head and reached down for the eyepatch. I caught a glimpse of the socket before he put it back on—black with scabs, angry lines of flesh snaking out over the cup of bone. It made my skin crawl. “Sleep, and drink a little port. And think through your reasons. Think about what will be . . . and what should be.”
Lil stood. “You . . . you’re a coward.” Her voice trembled. “You . . . used me.”
I was frozen, watching her. Lil, near tears. An impossibility.
She thought she’d found her family.
I couldn’t quite breathe watching her, feeling the weight of all that pain.
Hans studied her for a moment and turned away. “I did,” he admitted. “I erred. Ask him,” he said, his voice going suddenly ragged, flinging his arm in the direction of Eap. “He knows love. He knows loss. It’s not a matter of courage. I’m a broken man. Broken things cut. I’m sorry I cut
you, child, but you should have known better than to—”
“Shut up,” I hissed. I was gritting my teeth so hard, my jaw throbbed.
“I didn’t bring her with me, Hans,” Eap said quietly. “I let her go.”
“You didn’t love like I did.”
Eap moved so quickly, it almost didn’t register before it happened. He grabbed Hans by the front of his robe. “You,” he roared, “Do. Not. Know. Love.” Eap shook with rage. “Not yet. Not until you’ve sacrificed something for it.”
Eap stepped back, letting him go, raising his palms. “I apologize. Time to redeem yourself, old man. It is time to learn what love is. Time to take the bitter swallow,” he paused, tilted his head. “My friend.”
Hans blinked.
“This is your redemption. And we need you. Jenny—she needs you. And Lil. Look at her.”
I turned to look at Lil as well.
She was crying now. Fully crying. Tears down her face, hands covering it. Shoulders shaking.
I walked to her and put a hand on her arm.
She pulled her arm away, brushed her hand over her face, and ran out of the saloon.
A crowd had gathered in the entrance—several of the kitchen staff. She pushed through them.
“I will not fight,” Hans said.
Arapahoe was there on the deck, as if he knew I’d be waiting for him. Selah was there, too. I felt a fierce grip in my innards, seeing them. Their eyes followed Hans’ stumbling run across the deck. Arapahoe stepped forward, as if to intercept him.
“Take him,” I said to them. “Below. To the cage.”
They grabbed him, each taking an arm. Hans tried to shrug them off, and Arapahoe’s hands grew talons and gripped him, drawing blood.
That was me. Drawing blood. Arapahoe’s eyes widened, and he gave me a look.
I quickly returned his hands to normal. “Sorry,” I said to Arapahoe. But it didn’t make it better; he was still staring, and something seemed to be dawning in his face. Understanding.
Hans looked at me too, his eyes hollow. Empty. “I won’t be contained by a cage,” he said softly as we moved out onto the deck. His arms were skinny. He looked fragile. Selah and Arapahoe led him along the deck.
Eap had followed us. He pointed to the rail. “You don’t have anywhere to go.”
Hans looked over at the nothing, the mist, and his face went white.
“You’re at our mercy now,” I said, and felt immediately foolish. What was I, a character from a Jane Austen fanfic? These two old men were rubbing off on me. “You’re screwed,” I amended. “We know where firmament is, and you don’t. You’re stuck with us.”
Hans looked at Eap, who gave his awful, grim smile.
We were by the engine room. I called out for Marco. He emerged from his piloting room. Drake, the engine night shift manager, came out with him. I was a little surprised—I didn’t know they hung out. They hadn’t in any of the stories I’d told.
I shrugged it off. “Take him to lockup.”
Hans didn’t protest as they lead him down the hatch. The cell was right next to the engine room, so Drake could keep an eye on him, but I wanted to make sure. “Arapahoe, have the coal boys watch him in two-hour shifts,” I called to them. “Anything . . . unusual gets reported to me right away.”
Araphaoe met my eyes and nodded, then shut the hatch above them.
Arapahoe and Selah came back onto deck a moment later. Arapahoe was watching me. There was something in his expression. He was holding Selah by the shoulder.
He knew what had happened between me and Selah. She’d told him. Why? Why would she? Wasn’t this my story?
“Anything else, Captain?” Arapahoe’s voice was soft and . . . there was something dangerous in it.
“I . . .” I looked at him and couldn’t quite hold his gaze—dark, cool, and knowing. I looked at Selah.
She was hurt. Angry. Upset . . . confused. All these things I could see in her face. I knew her well enough. I’d written so many things for her . . . about her. I knew where she’d grown up—a sky farm on the outskirts of Amin. I knew what she’d done to get through flight school. All the ways she’d had to prove herself. All the abuses and slights she’d suffered at the hands of chauvinist instructors and horny squad members . . .
And I’d become one of them.
The truth of it stabbed me in the stomach. I couldn’t look at her. At them.
I waved my hand recklessly, and they vanished. Gone. Completely. Murdered, in one desire . . . one thought, replaced instead by two of my inappropriate chambermaids in their French maid uniforms, biting their nails and giggling.
“Well,” Eap said, a wry note in his voice, “you’ve gotten better at un-telling, it seems.”
When you really want something gone.
I turned, slowly, toward the cabins, heading for my room.
“We need to discuss what we’re doing next,” Eap said, his voice sharp again. “No time for sulking, boy. No time. We’ll go to Lil’s cabin. I’m sure that’s where she’s retreated to.”
I closed my eyes tight and nodded, and we walked down the corridor together. I had an idea brewing. But was it worth anything?
Was anything worth anything at this point? Who knew what we were going to face? All this nothingness.
It was time, I knew, to make something. I could feel it in every cell of my body. It was time to make some new firmament. Something we could defend. The four of us.
The three of us, and one kicking and dragging his feet all the way.
Yes.
I reached into my pocket, curling my fingers around the wooden pen, warm from my thigh. It was time to make something, but we needed to get Hans on board. We had to find a way. Much as the thought of tossing him overboard was appealing, we needed his abilities. We couldn’t afford to throw that away.
Chapter 18
“We need to make our own stronghold,” Lil said. She echoed what I’d just been thinking. I nodded.
“You realize,” Eap tapped his fingertip on the table, studying the map with narrowed eyes, “that while these fleeting tellings are hard to see, hard to sense in all this mist, any stronghold—anything that will hold up against the Grimms—must be firmament. And Firmament will immediately attract all the rooks and wolves in the entire Caldera.”
“The Whippoorwill’s pretty firm.”
“Yes,” Eap said. “It’s getting close to firm. But it moves.”
“Yeah. What if we made a place that was solid, still, and didn’t touch ground?” I asked. “Completely surrounded in mists? Harder to find, that way.”
Eap’s dark, fretful expression turned to confusion.
“No.” Lil gave me an incredulous look. “Really?”
“Str-r-r-ratopia,” I said, trilling the R with a savoring flourish, grinning as Lil’s mouth turned down. “I know it’s not your favorite, Lil, but it makes sense. A city in the sky supported only on poles. They’d be hard to find from the ground, and we could make it as high as we wanted to. They’d have so much more empty space to explore. And what if we made it confusing, like a labyrinth, once they found it? And we’d have guardians, of course—things to keep them at bay. We’d make a home for ourselves in the center.”
“It’s derivative.” Lil slapped her hand on the table. “So, so lame, Lo. Come on.”
“Derivative for us,” I countered. “See, that’s the beautiful thing about this. The Grimms have never seen anything like it. Or Eap, I’m guessing.” I looked at him.
He still looked confused. “A city suspended by poles? Suspended from what?”
“Not suspended. Supported by. A city up in the sky. Domes of glass containing atmosphere with strong metal plates and poles to support earth, and buildings, and structures.”
“Hm,” Eap said, touching his moustache.
“Lame,” Lil said.
“Hm,” Eap repeated. “Theoretically, we would not even need to make the poles fully touch any sort of ground. If we thought of clouds coveri
ng the base. If we were only focused on the area above— “
“It would be solid, and not attached to anything the Grimms have, or could fill in with Grimwoods,” I finished. “Woods aren’t up in the sky. It would make sense to our minds, to our story. It’s a good in-between, I think. Firmament that we can tell, and re-tell, and defend. We’d make a barrier, like the one you had around Grandeur. “
“But not something wolves can easily find,” Eap added. “Rooks might be another matter— “
“It would take them a while. They’re used to things more down to earth, too,” I argued.
“You guys,” Lil spoke through her teeth, “are being ridiculous. It’s the dumbest idea ever. I’ve read pages and pages of your Stratopia, Lo, and it all stinks.”
“But see, that makes it even better.” I wagged a finger at her. “You’ve read pages and pages. Pictured it. Critiqued it. Helped me form it.”
Lil stared at me, then rested her chin in her palm. “Crap,” she said quietly. “Crap, crap, crap. Stratopia. I didn’t come here, where we can make anything we want, be anything we want, Logan, to live in freaking Stratopia.”
“We’re going to make my city. All agreed?”
“A city in the sky,” Eap said. “Stacked plates on poles.” He shrugged. “Anything is worth a try. But you children,” he leaned across the table and peered at us, “still have no real concept of what we’ll have to do to make something firm.”
Lil sighed and gave in. I saw it, her face firming, blanking. “Fine. We’ll still have to make it far away from the firmament. Anything close as we are right now? They’ll come right away. Do we really want to go that far out to sea?”
“A sea of nothing,” Eap murmured. “Frightening indeed.”
“We do have compasses, and people who know how to use them, on my ship,” I said.
“If you haven’t pissed them all off,” Lil muttered.
I flinched, glanced at Eap.
He regarded me steadily. “Let’s fly several days into the mist. You’re quite right, Lil.” He shifted his gaze to her.
“Mist,” Lil said. “What is it, really?”
“Blank intelligences, as far as anyone’s been able to tell. Tiny particles of awareness, ready to be willed. Like a trillion empty glasses, waiting for wine to fill them. The problem with your strategy, Logan, is precisely the point you’ve made. Have you ever fallen through ice?”