“Like the one in my boat?” Deliverance asked, looking at the knapsack skeptically.
“Yes, exactly so. We coast in at an altitude that will not draw too much attention but is still high enough for us to leap out and use our parachutes to make it safely to ground. Unfortunately landing this behemoth, cloaked though she may be, would draw far too much attention even at night. So Finley and I have been running our operations for years this way and it’s worked like a charm.” Jack smiled, more than a little proud of his scheme. It was rather brilliant if he did say so himself.
To her credit, Deliverance did not question him as to why they needed such a covert entrance into Arcanton. She was an intuitive woman and seemed to see the benefit in remaining undetected. He was also glad he did not have to explain the specifics of why; it was such a massive subject it made his brain cramp trying to think of how to explain to her all the issues and ramifications of her even being here. He just prayed to God Almighty he had a solution. He was pretty sure he did…but pretty sure was not a certainty.
“So when it is nightfall, and we are over the area you want to land, we are going to leap off the ship, and use this…parachute to get to the ground intact?” Deliverance said, her desire to tinker with the packs evident on her fae-like face, but so far she was showing admirable restraint. Jack himself had not been able to resist tinkering with the rigs and learning their ins and outs at the drop zone where he learned to skydive back in his military days. The mates used to tease him he would be a master rigger before long. But that was years ago. Many of those men were not amongst the living anymore. Jack shook his head. Best not dwell on those bygone times.
“That’s precisely it!” Jack exclaimed approvingly. Quick study, this girl.
“Can I have my own parachute?” she asked, looking longingly at the rigs.
He grinned a large, shit-eating grin at her. Ballsy one, she was. “Hah! No, not this time, love. I would rather you make it to the ground in one piece. So unfortunately, you have to ride strapped to me. But don’t worry, I have done it a few times.” A few thousand times.
Her face fell a bit, so he added, “But perhaps eventually I can teach you how!” This returned the honey and sunshine smile to her lovely face. Jack chided himself, internally, for making far-fetched promises. But he found himself like a dog begging for biscuits, looking for ways to brighten that smile. He was such a dolt.
“Come along now. I need some more coffee. This fire-breather is out of fuel I’m afraid,” Jack said, proffering his arm to her. She took it without hesitation. Secretly it pleased him she was so willing to accept his company. He had expected a Narisi woman to be more fearful of men than Deliverance seemed. They lived in such a backward society. But then again, she was Cat’s daughter. If she shared any of her mother’s rumored personality, she had some piss and vinegar in her veins. Or maybe she just rather liked him.
No, he ought to stuff that thought away somewhere in the darkest reaches of his mind where he could not muse on it. Such thoughts were dangerous.
CHAPTER 9
Deliverance
She was so excited she could hardly stand it. Her cheeks flushed with anticipation. Not only was she flying on the airship, but she would get a chance to fly through the air, in and of herself! Well, sort of… strapped to Jack, anyway. It was the closest thing to becoming a bird she could fathom.
Back home, Deliverance would sometimes run as swiftly and agilely as she could through the forests near their homestead, weaving through the pines, each stony foothold memorized. She could feel the drumming of her heart as she pushed longer and harder, peeling through the countryside with all she had. And when she finally spent the last of her energy, she would drop into a bed of rushes at the top of the ridgeline by the sea, letting the sun recharge her. Her rattling breaths would match the rustling of the sun-warmed grasses surrounding her collapsed form. And she would gaze at those seafaring birds, floating high aloft the waves, resting nimbly on thermals, as if they could nap there; it was so natural to glide that way. She would study those avian athletes as she recovered her breath, a pleasant ache in her muscles falsely promising that next time, if she ran just a little bit harder, she too might take flight.
So how fascinating it was that people on the Outside did such things and did them often! They had a set system for doing this parachuting. Jack explained a bit about it to her. It was a sport called skydiving. There were different types of parachutes and the knapsacks were called rigs. The large cloth wings that would come out of the rigs were made of a fabric she had never heard of before, something strong called nylon. Jack showed her how one could pilot the chute, turning for and aft, like the wing of a bird, using his hand as an imitation of the parachute. Apparently, this required some skill, as did balancing in the air during the fall. Jack described different “disciplines” of skydiving where people would jump together in large groups or do complicated sky dances. He said the air benders, if they were strong enough and practiced enough, could stay in the sky longer and do more complicated routines. He started to tell a story of an air-gifted friend of his, but seemed to think better of it, and changed the subject. The man did not like to dwell on the past much. Deliverance speculated it had something to do with his military history scribed on his body in those intricate tattoos snaking up his arm.
But she was determined to find out as much as she could about this fascinating Outside world, which, like the seabirds, had previously been beyond her reach. Now it was a jump away…literally.
Her eyes stretched to the reaches of the canvas inflated over their heads, at the deepening bruise of the sky, at a seagull coasting below them, marveling.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” she breathed.
Jack snorted, arresting Deliverance from her daydreaming. “What is so funny, pirate?” she asked him playfully.
“You just quoted Shakespeare. I find it very odd you do not know about toothpaste and yet you are versed in famous literature,” Jack said, eyeing her in an amused manner. One of his eyebrows cocked up asymmetrically on his rugged face. He had grown a shadow across his face, denoting a beard yet to grow in thick and dark. What would the storywinders in the village call him…swarthy? Yes, perhaps swarthy was the word.
“Shake Spear. Is he a warrior?” Deliverance asked, turning to run her hands across the railing of the gangway, not wanting to miss the last of the sunlight. She knew it would be dark before they came into view of Arcanton and its capitol, Lontown. She still wished she could see it, though.
“Hah. Of sorts. He was more of a warrior of words. The pen being mightier than the sword and all that,” Jack replied, bemused.
Deliverance shook her head. What an odd expression. Anyone with any sense knew a sword could do a lot more damage than a quill. “So, he was a writer?” she said. “My mother used to quote portions of that play to me. We did not have a written copy of the actual work though, so she would recite from memory. We had a couple books but not many. It was not for women to own such items, although not much of anyone ever bothered us in our little corner of the isle. I thought perhaps the words came from some orator before the exodus to the island—a play from the time before, or perhaps she’d heard one of the storywinders in the village tell the tale.”
“He was actually fro
m Arcanton. One of the most famous playwrights in our history in fact,” Jack replied. “He wrote a little bit after the Narisi exile though.”
Deliverance would have wondered what her mother was doing in possession of such knowledge from the Outside but she had become aware in the past couple days her mother was much more than met the eye. The mysteriousness of Cat’s connection to the Outside nagged at Deliverance’s mind. What had her mother been hiding?
***
There was a flurry of excitement before the hush. Men rushed to accomplish last minute duties and tie up loose ends before the sun dropped below the weighted horizon in a flash, leaving indigo and violet in its wake. Deliverance had not moved from the deck of the ship, pacing along the gangway and attempting to steer clear of the bustling crew. Jack had disappeared for a spell, also claiming last minute details to attend to.
Deliverance alternated between watching the horizon, still not being able to pick out any hint of land, and watching the scurrying men tie down ropes and toss dark covers over cargo. She considered the matte black paint of the boat, deciding it was adapted well to being inconspicuous, though she confessed she had no understanding of what Jack meant when he explained about ray-dars. As best she could tell, it was something akin to how a bat finds its prey, they being the insect and the Arcanton dock authorities being the predators. She swallowed quickly, her huntress nature feeling unease at becoming the hunted. The unease was coupled with the lingering doubt that a nefarious pirate could possibly have a connection with a Lord of station such as Lord Asher, but she felt she could trust Jack despite these concerns.
She hoped so.
A shrill, undulating whistle settled itself across the entire ship, and suddenly there was silence. Deliverance felt Jack slip into the space next to her, indicating with a finger to his lips their covert entry to the Republic of Arcanton had begun. It was eerie how the hustle and bustle fell dead, only a light breeze and the waves below them daring to peep a sound. There was hardly any moon, which aided their clandestine entry. The moon would have traitorously revealed their looming silhouette.
Deliverance could tell by the sounds of the water beneath them they had crested the shoreline and were floating over land, but the pitch-blackness of the night made it impossible to make out any features of the city below. From what she understood they would float by various drop off points throughout the city, ones that had a large open space with landing and contacts waiting to squirrel the sky intruders away quickly before they were detected. Jack and Deliverance’s drop off point was one of the last.
Jack grasped her hand in his, and warmth radiated up her wrist. She had learned to control the fire gift response in her, and so nothing alit at the contact. Nothing visible anyway. Deliverance shook her head, clearing it of useless thoughts of attraction cluttering her attention. He folded her leather gloves into the palm of her hand.
“Best put these on, love. We don’t want you to get too wrapped up in the moment and forget to control your gift mimicking. A burnt parachute sounds less than appealing,” he whispered in her ear, the downy curls there tickling her lobes. She nodded in agreement and slipped on the supple gloves, pulling the fingers down so she had full mobility. After doing so, he towed her along to the main deck where the crew was gathered.
Men in various assortments of readiness adjusted straps, checked gadgets, including red light headlamps, and practiced pulling, arching backward in an odd, uncomfortable looking way. Deliverance had learned earlier this was the position they would have to assume in the air to remain stable and not flip or spin out of control like a leaf in the autumn falling from its branch.
Jack ventured over and tugged on straps, checking this and that on his crewmates’ rigs. He slapped shoulders, shook hands, and gave an occasional hug to his fellows as he went. She could see why all the crewmates respected Jack. He was concerned for their safety. He looked out for them. It was an admirable quality.
When he returned to her, he considered her for a moment, then spun her abruptly and rather forcibly so her back was to him and grabbed her hair. She had to stifle a gasp at the suddenness. Then, with gentleness despite the terse motions, he wound her waist-length dark hair into a single braid.
When she looked over her shoulder questioningly, he admitted, “I have a little sister. She likes…used to like to have her hair braided. Also, I can’t have that wild mess whipping me in the face as we descend.” With that he tucked the braid into her shirt collar. Deliverance nodded in agreement. It made sense.
After that he slung a larger looking rig over his shoulders and fidgeted with it for a while before helping her into a harness, this one for obvious reasons lacking a parachute behind it. He attached his rig to hers with her back to him, and they shuffled forward to the opening in the railing Finley had popped free for them. The other jumpers thus far had catapulted themselves over the railing with salutes and grins, gravity sucking them away in a blink. Deliverance could almost not believe how they were there one second and gone the next.
When they neared the gateway, Jack cinched the straps connecting the two of them securely. Deliverance could feel the press of his solid, reassuring body behind her.
“Stand or sit? Sometimes sitting is easier to swallow,” Jack murmured. Deliverance tried to eye him but found she could not shift enough to give him a look.
“Stand,” she whispered back and could hear his faint chuckle in reply. They inched forward to the edge, blackness stretching out before their feet. Deliverance’s heart began to race. There was nothing between them and the pit of nothing before them.
“Cheers, Finley. Until next time!” Jack whispered to his captain, then squared with the opening. Deliverance in front, and Jack close behind. “Ready?” Jack asked in her ear.
Deliverance, despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins like the water in a mill grist, felt a huge grin blossoming across her features.
“Always.”
With that, they launched.
Deliverance’s stomach lurched, but not as much as when she dove from the cliffs on her and her mother’s beach. It was not the drop that was overwhelming but the noise. The wind ripped across her body, singing like a banshee, all consuming. At first she found it difficult to breath, but then realized all she had to do was to inhale and exhale as she normally would. The wind pealed across her cheeks, causing indents and her eyes to water. It was shatteringly cold, but it did not matter in the slightest. It seemed like an eternity. Deliverance almost wished it would last that long. They were flying, hanging aloft in the sky like night birds!
Too soon, Deliverance felt a rattling jerk, her feet flying up in front of her face, although it was too dark to see them clearly. And the noise ceased. She felt Jack shuffling around behind her, and then the canopy tilted forward slightly and picked up speed. They turned slowly one way and then the next, finally pulling up again before dropping back into a steady flight speed. Jack had explained before he would do that to check the steering and that all was well with the canopy.
Her heart was still pounding with excitement, though her breathing remained, she proudly noted, fairly steady. The silence enveloped them, wrapping around their limbs and their eyes, singing a faint lullaby in the breeze through the risers of the rig.
Jack risked a whisper to ask, “You okay?” She
nodded fiercely and grinned. Even without the moonlight, her white smile was visible. He flashed a hearty one back. His hands found her gloved ones, and guided them up into the steering toggles. With his larger ones overlapping hers, he helped her turn left, then right. She had to stifle a squeal of glee. Who would have ever have thought this was even possible? That she, Deliverance, the girl with no gift, would be flying? It was truly astounding.
Jack flashed his glowing altimeter and switched on his red headlamp, indicating they were starting their pattern to land. Below them, perhaps a little less than 1000 feet, two large lights switched on, illuminating a swatch of open farmland. Carefully, Jack guided them in a rectangle and swooped into the lights. Deliverance picked her feet up, making herself a ball as she was instructed previously and they slid unceremoniously to a halt. The lights flicked off again, and Deliverance felt she was again alone with Jack, although she knew there would be another person close by operating the lights.
They reclined back for just a second, catching their breath, relishing the shared moment. Carefully, Deliverance lifted a gloved hand behind her, searching for Jack’s face. When she alighted upon his cheek, she strained her neck backward and pressed her lips to the other cheek. The stubble there prickled and she smelled his sea and pine scent. His hand came up and touched the one on his face, laying his overtop hers as though to say, stay there. She could not. It was as intimate as she had ever been with a man. She had to break the contact, breathless. But a small flicker of joy deep inside her was glad she did not let that singular moment pass unmarked.
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