Deliverance

by Samantha Schinder

  “Finley!” Jack called out in greeting, arm held high as they ambled up the slipway onto the deck of the ship. While the Daedalus dwarfed many of the small fishermen’s vessels tossing about, there were still larger, more imposing ships anchored in the riverway.

  “Aye, Master Jack! The last of your crew came aboard about half an hour ago. Let’s be off. I am not at ease in these brackish waters,” Finley crowed in his swarthy drawl.

  “You mean you are not at ease being legally docked and with actual documentation,” Jack retorted.

  “Aye, that might be true also,” Finley admitted with a grin.

  “Let’s get this show on the road then,” Jack commanded.

  Deliverance shook her head. Just when she thought she was getting the hang of Arcanton expressions, a new one would crop up and puzzle her. They were most definitely not on a road!

  Navigating the James River in the heart of Lontown apparently required a lot of swearing on the part of Finley and his helmsman, but soon the vessel had breached the estuary and gained speed out into the open waters. It was a little like déjà vu, watching the crest of waves from the stern of the ship, Deliverance thought.

  Then she spied Lord Asher on the same deck, just a bit off, fumbling with some piece of equipment. She ventured over to him to watch his efforts.

  “What is that?” she asked, accidently startling the man. He bumbled around, trying to catch the contraption in his slippery hands, but managed to secure it before it leapt overboard. “Oh, sorry,” she said as an afterthought.

  “This? This is a set of infrared binoculars…it allows one to see heat signatures at greater distances. It helps you see at night,” Lord Asher explained.

  “But…it’s daylight,” Deliverance said, unsure.

  “Yes…which is why they are not working. Same with my astrolabe,” he replied cryptically.

  “You have an astrolabe?” Jack said, creeping up behind him. Lord Asher gave another start.

  “What? Yes of course I do! Any self-respecting cultural anthropologist understands the workings of an astrolabe!” Lord Asher cried indignantly.

  “Uh huh,” was Jack’s unimpressed response. Great, Deliverance thought. They were back at each other’s throats.

  “Good to get this business over, so I can go back to my research on Antarticus,” Lord Asher mumbled, fiddling with the binoculars.

  “You’re an anthropologist!” Jack stated.

  “Your point?” Lord Asher replied snidely.

  “There are no people on Antarticus,” Jack replied incredulously.

  “Precisely.”

  Both Jack and Deliverance rolled their eyes. One too many memories stolen or just plain eccentric either way, Lord Asher was a character. Jack left to go do a roll call of his team, leaving Deliverance with her father.

  “Lord Asher?” she prompted, after a minute, having secured a position at the rail to watch the horizon. “It’s rather formal to call someone that who shares half of one’s DNA,” she remarked.

  “Ah, you learned about DNA! Good!” was his reply.

  So she continued on, “But it does not seem to sit right to call you father…at least just yet. Can I call you John?”

  Lord Asher stilled for a moment, then replied, “I would like that very much, Del.”

  Deliverance nodded. They spent some time in companionable silence before Deliverance gathered the courage to ask, “Are you nervous? About seeing my mother?”

  “Oh…ah,” John stammered, blushing rather prettily for an older gentleman. “I am dreading it, to be honest. I have not had direct contact with her since they captured her and took me off the Nar Project. Scientists are not supposed to get involved with their research subjects, according to Oxdale.” Deliverance detected a note of irony in his voice.

  “That must have been hard,” Deliverance allowed.

  “It was. We had such plans. We were going to travel the world. Escape from all this silly nonsense and raise you with your feet dancing in Morakech, running across the sands of Meldina, surfing in the Southlands. We were going to go anywhere and everywhere. But it was not meant to be. Someone somewhere must have betrayed us or detected us. I still do not know who or how. But they were waiting on the coastline for us as we pulled the boat in and ambushed us as soon as we set foot on Arcanton soil. I tried for a while after that to get put back on the project or to bribe the new project managers to slip notes through to Cat. But after a while, I grew despondent. I fell into a pit and rationalized it with research in other areas and a healthy dose of scotch…I am sorry.” John had a quake in his voice at the last sentence. Deliverance regarded him carefully, as he stared at his hands, a man at a loss.

  “The past is done,” Deliverance said finally. “There is no undoing it. Let us move forward from here. I never would have been able to come this far without your aid, John. Leave your apologies behind us and let us start anew.” She added wryly, “As for my mother, I will let you figure that one out on your own when you reunite.”

  John nodded, looking both relieved at Deliverance’s answer and foreboding at the idea of seeing Cat again. She decided to leave him with his thoughts, and ventured below deck to find Eleanor, Addie, and Mrs. Potter. On the way she passed Stevens on the quarterdeck, pushing air into great billowing sails of the ship. He looked entirely content being of use in this capacity, so Deliverance did not disturb him.

  Below the deck, Deliverance found Mrs. Potter had ousted the ship’s head chef and was directing the kitchen staff to the suite. She smiled to herself at the woman’s gumption.

  “If we have all the spices and provisions and necessities, why not combine them to make an appealing meal? The sludge that man was preparing tasted like pig slops!” Mrs. Potter declared, gesticulating with a rather sharp looking butcher’s knife. Deliverance was not about to argue the point with her either.

  Deliverance found Eleanor helping Addie arrange her field medical supplies in one of the bays. Addie was showing Eleanor the suture kit and where to put each type of accouterment, so they would have ready access if they needed it. Deliverance swallowed. She hoped they would not, but she knew better than any of them the violent, unpredictable nature of the de facto leaders on Nar.

  She squeezed Addie’s shoulder as she walked by and began to help the ladies with the preparations. There was nothing else to do between now and then but ready themselves as best they could.

  ***

  Their plan was to free Cat and Effie first, and then engage with the villagers. Deliverance described where the gaol was in the mineworks on the Eastern side of the island. If they landed under the cover of darkness, they would have enough time to gather Cat and Effie before anyone realized the large ship was anchored off the coast. They would have to take the smaller landing craft into the island, though, and climb the cliffs to gain access to the mine. The rest of their party would wait aboard the Daedalus for the signal to come ashore on the more exposed beachhead. It was decided Niles, Jack, and Deliverance would be the forward leading team.

  It was dark when they sailed into the vicinity of the island, but Deliverance could smell she was home, could feel it in her bones. Thanks to Stevens’ airbending they had made
impeccable time to Nar, far quicker than the journey away had been weeks before.

  “Be careful,” Eleanor whispered to Deliverance, grasping her around the neck in a wringing hug.

  Deliverance put a hand to her cheek. “We will be back before you know it. Get ready and listen to Doctor Addie!” she instructed. Then she swung her legs over the side and landed softly in the dingy. Jack and Niles were already preparing to cast off.

  They all three held a look. “Ready?” Jack said, green fire sparking in his eyes.

  “Ready,” they both agreed.

  CHAPTER 31

  Deliverance

  The slap of the oars on the cobalt cresting waters sounded deafening to Deliverance, even though she knew they would not likely be detected. Perhaps her nerves increased her sensitivity to the creak of the boat joints or the breathing of her companions. The shore seemed impossibly far, but distances in the dark were deceiving.

  She was awash with energy when the boat hit sand, and her feet were immediately in the surf, helping to pull the dingy ashore. The scrape of the boat along the cove grated on Deliverance’s nerves and she was shaky by the time they readied themselves to start surmounting the cliff face in front of them. In the daytime the cliff would be a wash of white, creamy stone, creased with iron and jutted with pines and scraggly brush. The moon overhead, though, gave the rock a bluish tint, which faded to soot grey up close.

  Niles led the ascent, being an experienced climber. Deliverance was in the middle and Jack, now being the slowest, took the bottom position. Despite the looming height of the cliff face and the dark, they climbed steadily up. Deliverance thought she would have to wait longer for Jack to catch up and clip in at each interval, but he was proving himself full of his own brawny prowess, although his was entirely natural, not magical. The thought sent a hot flash through Deliverance in unmentionable places, and she quickly stuffed that thought to the back of her mind.

  Niles held his fist out to order a halt, just before they crested the cliff. Deliverance could see him peeking above the edge, checking to make sure the coast was clear. Satisfied, he dropped his fist, and they hauled themselves up over the edge of the precipice, Jack a tad more winded than Niles and Deliverance.

  Deliverance sprung to her feet, gathering her ropes and coiling them as she padded quietly toward the gaol entrance to the mine just above. There was no light emanating from inside the cave or from anywhere around, but Deliverance expected Cat and Effie would have nothing to light a fire with to warm themselves. Had they been much later, the two women could have passed out from the cold at night. Deliverance shivered at the thought. She hoped they were not already too late.

  She rounded the last part of the climb up the hill to the tall bars drilled into the cave entrance. It was dead quiet.

  “Mom?” she called quietly. “Effie?” Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely hear herself.

  For the longest time there was no reply. Nothing. Not even the wind. Just the cold rebar grating Deliverance’s sweating palms.

  Then, “Deliverance!! God’s teeth!! What in the Fades be ye here for?” Effie cried, running to the entrance and embracing Deliverance through the bars. Deliverance tried to shush her but both women had burst into tears.

  Cat appeared behind Effie, a specter at first. “Deliverance?” she asked almost incredulously. Her eyes too watered with unshed tears.

  “I’ve come back! I’ve come back for you all!”

  Effie’s eyes landed on Jack and Niles, who’d just appeared behind Deliverance, and she startled away from the bars, stumbling and landing on her rear.

  “And who in Fades be these men?” she hissed, scrambling backward.

  Deliverance had forgotten Effie had probably never seen a man like Niles before, but then she may have been startled by the strange men in general.

  “It’s okay Effie! These are my friends. They are here to help,” Deliverance reassured her. Effie only looked marginally less alarmed.

  Jack strode forward and stuck his hand through the bars toward Cat. “Jack Quentin. Pleased to finally meet you.”

  “Ah, so you are Jack Quentin. The studious senator determined to upset the world with your radical ideas. The narrative developers mentioned you often,” Cat said coolly, regarding Jack.

  He let his hand drop. “Right, well I suppose there is more time for introductions later. Let’s get you out of here.”

  “And just how do you propose to do that?” Effie asked. “I’ve scoured every inch of this place looking for a way out. There tisn’t one.”

  “Like this,” Jack said with a spark of mischief in his eyes. “Oh, by the way…stand back.”

  Effie scrambled back, eyes the size of saucers, as magic roared to life in Jack’s hands. The green flame rocketed into orange then deep, searing blue as Jack grasped the bars of the gaol.

  “God’s teeth, what in the world are you!?” she yelped, although Cat looked only vaguely surprised.

  Deliverance caught her mother’s eye. “You and I have much to discuss, Mother.”

  “Yes,” she said airily. “I suppose we do.”

  Jack bent the metal bars back, some of the metal sloughing to the cave floor in red hot, molten puddles. Once the opening was large enough, Effie and Cat scurried through, careful to avoid the hazardous beads of molten metal and scalding, bent bars.

  “They probably saw that little display in the village,” Cat remarked to Jack as they hastened down the path to the shoreline on the other side, where the bigger beachhead would be the site of their landing.

  “If they did not, they will definitely see this,” Jack replied, holding his arm straight up and sending a billowing, roaring flame ball into the air. The signal to come ashore. It had begun.

  “Criminy, what is wrong with that one?” Effie asked under her breath to Deliverance, eyeing Jack like a three-headed toad.

  “There is so much to explain, Effie. But I am so glad you and Mother are all right!” Deliverance replied, squeezing her oldest friend’s hand.

  “Aye, Charity and Amity attended to us so’s we dinna starve,” Effie informed her. “I dinna expect them to be so decent, and yet…I suppose people surprise ye. We’re alive because of them.”

  “Then we shall try our best to help them in turn,” Deliverance replied.

  By the time they made their way, slipping on the sandy path, down to the beach, a number of dinghies were already visible floating atop the moon-dappled waters. The first boat to arrive had John standing in the front. He leapt into the waters and strode straight forward. Deliverance saw her mother converging on him to meet him in the ankle-deep water.

  Cat reared her hand back and with a resounding thwack planted a cracking slap across John’s face. He stumbled in the tide and almost lost his balance. Cat did not wait a beat, though, before grabbing both the man’s lapels and forcibly pulling him to her in a hungry, impassioned kiss. Deliverance looked away, slightly embarrassed.

  “I see you come from a long line of socially adept people,” Jack said to her, tongue in cheek. She eyed him at first, then chuckled. Cat was also most decidedly not a people-person. “Well, I will help the others get the supplies ashore while you…hav
e some explaining to do to your mum and your friend.” Jack sounded like he was ever so pleased to schlep equipment rather than face Cat.

  Deliverance found Effie on the edge of all the landing activity, staring blankly and shivering. She cast around for a second before grabbing a blanket off a pile of supplies being carted in.

  “Hey,” she said to her longest friend, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. Effie’s eyes snapped to hers.

  “What…what is all this, Deliverance!?” she cried, tears of shock creating small channels of clean on her otherwise sooty face.

  She gathered her friend in her arms and hushed her soothingly. “This, my friend, is change. But do not fear. This time, it will be for the better.”

  After Effie gathered herself together, they went in search of Cat and John. As they passed Niles, Deliverance stopped and asked him, “Have you seen any sign of the villagers yet?”

  He shook his head. “Isn’t that odd? Don’t you think they should be here by now?”

  “I would have thought so…do you think it’s wise to make camp here without encountering anyone yet?” Deliverance asked Niles, grateful for his military expertise.

  “It won’t matter either way. Between Jack and I, the camp will be safe from any threat. It is odd, though, there has not been a greeting party yet,” Niles replied grimly. Deliverance nodded in agreement.

  By the time Cat and John were found…decidedly more disheveled than Deliverance could have believed possible for either one of them, Addie had managed to get her medical tent erected in the clearing on the plateau above the shoreline. Others were working diligently to put up more infrastructure.

  “Come, let me introduce you to some of my new family,” Deliverance said. Cat cocked an eyebrow at her word choice but said nothing.