Aloft

by J F Rogers

  I leapt from the room. The door crashed behind me. I dashed down the path, darting around the corner. The electric scent hit me. Still, I ran around the next bend, slamming into Declan. He and Alastar stood over a fasgadair thrashing on the ground.

  The demon stilled, gave a final twitch, then turned to dust.

  I punched Alastar’s upper arm, then Declan’s.

  “Ow.” They complained as they rubbed their arms, eyes wide, staring at me as if I’d just destroyed their favorite toy.

  “What was that for?” Alastar asked.

  I pointed at each of their faces in turn. “Don’t do that again. You hear me? We stick together.”

  “Okay, okay.” Declan held his hands up.

  Alastar grinned.

  I studied the stone wall before us. “Didn’t we go full circle? This pathway must surround the room we were just in.” Other than the fact that this path ended here.

  “Yes. The covered stairs where we came up must be on the other side of this wall,” Declan said.

  We returned to what we believed was a false wall and tapped on stones. But I didn’t know what I was looking for. I pressed a stone, and it budged. “Is this it?” I asked, sucking in a breath.

  Alastar shoved the stone, and a door opened. Now that I saw the seams, I wondered how I hadn’t noticed it. Electricity wafted from the gap.

  “There’s a fasgadair in there.” I dragged Alastar away from the entrance by his collar.

  Declan nudged ahead of Alastar, yanked a torch from the wall, and thrust it at me.

  I lit it on fire, and the pale glow of a fasgadair face appeared over Declan’s shoulder, fangs bared. I grabbed him and groped for Alastar as teeth sank into Declan from behind. His eyes widened.

  Alastar kicked the fasgadair in the gut. The blood must’ve been doing its work because the fasgadair fell down the stairs, crunching bones echoing as it descended.

  “Why didn’t you connect with Declan and light him up?” I asked Alastar.

  He hung his mouth open in mock hurt. “Aren’t you the one who wants to give them a chance for redemption before just killing them? He’d already bit Declan. Might as well see if it will live.”

  We followed Declan to a landing where the demon’s flattened clothes lay in a pile of dust. That one died in record time.

  I’d never understand why some lived and others died. Just one of those things I’d have to leave in God’s hands, where it belonged. Salvation didn’t belong to me. I just helped it along… if possible.

  We squished together on the landing. Alastar released a wall lever, and the opening stones made a grinding noise. I held my breath, expecting another vampire to attack. But we arrived in a room we’d checked earlier. Still clear.

  “How can we know the place is secure when there are so many places for a fasgadair to hide?” I asked.

  “We can’t,” Alastar said. “But the top levels are as secure as we can make them. Any fasgadair that slip by us at this point won’t last. They’re outnumbered. And, unless they hope for redemption, they won’t want to bite anyone once word of the redeemed has spread. They’ll die off, eventually. One way or another.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ◊◊◊

  THE HARBOR BUSTLED. TRUNKS of supplies, sacks of oats, and casks of wine and salted meats clogged the piers. A wooden crane hauled the awaiting supplies on board while crewmen lugged smaller items up the planks. Boys cleaned awaiting ships by dumping buckets of water while others came up behind with mops, swabbing the deck.

  I adjusted my pack over my shoulders, waiting to board. Though it was somewhat lighter than when I’d first arrived through the megalith, it was quite heavy. It was jam-packed once more with everything I owned since I may never return to this place.

  God, please don’t let me lose my journal again.

  If I made it through all this, I’d love to write of my adventures and share it with the world. I’d have to pretend it was fiction, of course. Probably fantasy. As wonderful as it would be to show people just how amazing God is, they’d never believe me anyway. And I might get myself incarcerated in the process.

  But that was okay. If any part of my story drew them nearer to God, I’d have done my part in my realm too. But writing such a story would be a much simpler task with my journal. Already I was forgetting so much of what I’d experienced. And I’d hate to lose those memories.

  “What’s occupying yer mind, lass?” Wolf squeezed between me and Kai.

  “Oh… Just thinking about the future.” I pressed myself closer to Declan to give Wolf more room.

  “Aye.” Wolf pursed his lips. “I can’t believe ’tis time. The selkie and dark pech are here. King Aleksander has his country back. God has been good to us. Nothing more stands in our way.”

  “Other than these guys still loading the ship. I thought this was supposed to be done yesterday?”

  “There was a problem with the crane. ’Tis no problem. We’re not far behind schedule. The ship’ll be loaded up, and we’ll be off to meet the pech in the Somalta Caverns in no time.”

  The men attached the last cask to the hoist, and my heart flipped. We’d be boarding soon.

  “Yeah. Kagan’s plan is finally happening.” I sighed. “Too bad he wasn’t here to see it.”

  Wolf nodded, his face somber as he hung his head.

  Though Kagan manipulated me to set fasgadair ships on fire, I didn’t hate him. He made choices he thought would protect the king and the kingdom. Unfortunately, he was wrong. And his insistence on clinging to his gods to the end and refusing to acknowledge the One True God meant he wasn’t with Him. Not from what I could tell.

  Chances were, we’d never meet again.

  An image of a world without God, with nothing but all the horrors I’d experienced in this world, absent of all of God’s goodness—flashed before me. A dark place, cold, surrounded by angry faces and gravestones, brimming with fear, hatred, and self-loathing. I shuddered. Would each person be isolated in their own personal hell? I didn’t want to imagine such a place. If heaven was everything good, then hell was everything bad. Since the world comprised both and I was desperate to escape the terrible aspects, I wouldn’t be able to handle even a nanosecond in a place like that.

  I must prevent as many people from being separated from God, damned to hell for eternity, as possible. No one would go there if I had any choice in the matter.

  But it wasn’t up to me. God gave everyone a choice, and I needed to do the same. I had no power to do otherwise. I could only use the gifts God gave me and hope people would be saved. I just had to do my small part.

  The fasgadair sought to devour and destroy with Morrigan in the lead. God put me here to bring as many people to Him as possible. I had to focus on Him and remember that end goal.

  As I stood on the pier waiting to board, a renewed desire to save lives fueled me, but the method of transportation did not. I envied Pepin. If only I’d been dropped off at the Somalta Caverns with him.

  But then I’d be trapped underground in a land crawling with fasgadair.

  I shuddered. No thanks. I’d face that soon enough.

  A crewman shouted something I couldn’t make out and waved us forward. We boarded the ship like cattle, jostling each other onto the lower deck. I had no space. No breathing room. The low ceiling made it worse. I gulped for air as I pushed through to the stairs accessing the deck.

  Free from the crowd, I took deep breaths and calmed myself, then headed toward the aft to watch Bandia drift out of sight. Pressure built at the back of my eyes, pricking my temples. I rubbed them and groaned.

  “Another headache?” Kai, his elbows braced on the aftrail, looked over his shoulder at me. Wind blew stabs of dark hair into his eyes as he twisted in place.

  I nodded. “It’s not as bad as the others.” It had been days since my last headache. I thought I’d gotten over whatever had induced them. They better not overtake me on the battlefi
eld.

  The pressure settled into a dull ache as a sinister sense of curiosity and glee overtook my mind. It was almost as if…

  No.

  I shook off the thought before it rooted in. It wasn’t possible. I haven’t had another dream since Alastar. No, not Alastar… Na’Rycha. Better to view them as two different people. Alastar was a new person. Na’Rycha was gone forever.

  But what was this? The sensation of a malevolent presence in my mind was strikingly similar to the dreams when both Aodan and Na’Rycha had pervaded my mind. But I was awake. And I had no more family members with the ability to take over my mind. Did I? How many evil family members could one person have?

  Ever since Wolf yanked me into Ariboslia last year, I’ve been stumbling upon family members. I’ve only known that Declan and Alastar were my brothers, triplets, for a couple months. Who knew what else I’d find? But at this point, I think my mother would have told me if I had any other family I should know about.

  The pain slipped away, and I lost myself in Kai’s concerned gaze. My heart melted. If only I could run away to his tropical paradise with him. But now, I needed to focus on the battle ahead. I couldn’t allow anything to distract me.

  “There you are.” Ji Ah huffed and puffed in an exaggerated fashion. She approached Kai, bent forward, braced one arm on a knee and another on his arm. “Woo.” She let out one final breath, then straightened and gathered her dark hair, pulling it over her left shoulder.

  What had I just been thinking about distractions?

  ****

  We spent an uneventful week at sea, bored out of my mind. I’d lost my deck of cards in the shipwreck, so I found scraps from discarded sails, convinced the cooks to give me some beans, and had Kai stitch up crude beanbags. I snagged clay pots, and we played beanbag toss. The boat’s sway made the game more interesting. Everyone got involved when they had downtime. Wolf was the reigning champ.

  We couldn’t practice archery without losing arrows. Maili forced me to keep practicing fighting. And, since we were so far out to sea and the sailors recognized us, they let Alastar, Declan, and me take off as birds. What a relief to fly and get off the tiny boat. Okay… it was an enormous boat. But every day it seemed to shrink, stifling me.

  The only thing that got me through was transforming and flying away from this cocoon. I approached a crewman with a bandana tied around his head. “Is it okay to fly today?”

  “Sorry, lass. We’re too close to land.” He shuffled away.

  I found my friends mending masts. Why had I never learned to sew? It seemed like something everyone in Ariboslia could do.

  Ji Ah appeared over my shoulder. “Need help? My stitching could use some practice.” Declan and Alastar both called out, holding up material, but she sat next to Kai and took some of his bundle. “Remember that time you stepped on coral?” She held a hand over her mouth. Crinkled eyes peeked over the top.

  Kai cringed. “That hurt so bad.”

  She tipped her pointer finger in the air. “That was my first time stitching a person.” She patted his arm, then giggled again. “Thank you for giving me a chance to learn.”

  She stitched his foot? I gagged.

  Kai squinted against the sun, then put his needle down to shield eyes with a hand. “Are you going to fly?”

  With Ji Ah cozying up to him, I wasn’t sure I wanted to if I could. “No, they say we’re too close to land.”

  “That’s good news,” Alastar said. “Why do you sound so sad?”

  I shrugged.

  “At least you got to fly.” Kai sucked on the end of a string, then threaded a needle.

  “Ya.” Ji Ah adjusted the material on her lap. “Imagine being a selkie, so close to the water yet unable to touch it.” She stabbed the needle into the canvas. “It’s torture.”

  “I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t let you swim.” I lowered myself to sit crisscross on the deck.

  Kai poked the needle through the sail and tugged. “Swimming as a dolphin would have been fine. I can swim faster than this ship can sail with a strong wind—”

  “As can a seal,” Ji Ah interrupted.

  “Ya.” Kai tipped his head, acknowledging her comment. “But dressing in the water and climbing back on board a moving ship in human form would have been impossible without slowing the ship. I understand their concern.”

  I sighed. “At least we’ll be off this floating coffin soon.” Life at sea was beyond tiresome.

  So was Ji Ah. Although she was starting to grow on me. Like a fungus. She seemed oblivious to my brothers who were clearly infatuated with her. And her relationship with Kai seemed close and comfortable, but less threatening than a week ago. Still, I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust her.

  “Land, ho!” The man in the mast spoke those beautiful words.

  A handful of crewmen jumped along the rigging like monkeys. Gachen brought up flasks of blood and poured some into cups to dip swords and daggers. Selkie flooded the decks with their battle tunics and swords. Covering their swords in the blood was impractical since it would wash away when they swam to the beach.

  The first battalion of redeemed boarded longboats from all nine ships. Archers prepared to shoot any animals that dared approach on the beach.

  As the dinghies paddled closer to the shore, the selkie leapt from the ships, transforming into seals midair, as they had when storming the stronghold. But this time, we sent the redeemed ahead first.

  Then I remembered the shark. I scanned the ocean for protruding fins. We’d killed the one that attacked us, but what if there were more? My heart stilled as I watched the selkie, flying through the water to shore. But so far, no signs of fasgadair. No scent. Nothing visible in the water or on land.

  The dinghies delivered the redeemed and returned for the second battalion. Though a sizeable group now crowded the beach and stormed the forest, not one animal approached.

  I boarded a longboat to join the crowd of confused fighters ready for action but finding none. Still nothing. Not one sign of a fasgadair. I sniffed. Nothing but salty air and dirty men. At least the selkie were cleaner after their swim.

  Nervous tension filled the air. It was like preparing to confront someone, getting all worked up on the way to their house, and finding them not home. The heavy weight of an unaccomplished task settled on my shoulders. Fasgadair swarmed this shore when we left for Bandia. Where were they now? Had we found the perfect spot at the right time? Or were Morrigan’s minions waiting to ambush us when our guard was down?

  Keeping watch for anything suspicious, we loaded the necessities onto wagons. Warriors surrounded the supplies, and we walked in silence toward Kylemore. Trudging feet and squeaky wheels. All else quiet. Not even a tweeting bird. Men flanked us. I trekked along somewhere in the middle of the brigade.

  Where were the fasgadair?

  Not finding a fight was disconcerting. With each step forward, I felt more and more certain—we were walking into a trap.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ◊◊◊

  SPINDLY TREES SURRENDERED TO massive trunks, their thick canopies filtered the lowering sun, allowing dapples of dim light and promising night hadn’t fallen yet. Hundreds of birds twittered, flitting about from branch to branch, scattering at our approach. Their song wafted through the sky. The path widened and smoothed with hard-packed dirt. So we had either entered or neared Kylemore. Maili’s nervous energy radiated to me. Her face tenser than usual, only her shaking betrayed her. Like a surgeon’s, that girl’s hands never shook.

  She picked up her pace, passing trees broad enough for cars to drive through. The trunks grew in girth. She ran to one capable of housing a Piper or Cessna airplane. She twisted a knot at the base. A smooth plank pushed out, then another and another, forming a spiral staircase along the trunk. Maili didn’t wait until the steps ejected fully. She darted up the stubs still in motion and disappeared into the leafy canopy. A few soldiers followed.


  I waited on the ground with Kai and my brothers, breathing in the sweet woodsy scent unique to Kylemore. The neighboring trees weren’t quite as large, but they must be part of the treehouse village. Did they have their own staircases? Or was this tree the key to gaining entrance to the village’s bridge network concealed in the leaves? Good thing the dwellings were well hidden. They seemed untouched by the fires in the fasgadairs’ attempt to burn the village. But then, perhaps that gave the Arlen a false sense of security so they ignored our warning to flee. The fasgadair didn’t need to burn the entire village to decimate the Arlen. I shuddered. Hopefully, we’d be able to rescue some in this war so Maili wouldn’t be the last of her clan.

  God, please let Zakur and her elephants be okay.

  “Okay, men.” General Seung stood on a crate. “Welcome to Kylemore, our first destination. Ready the camp.”

  When he stepped from the crate, everyone dropped their things. Leaders barked orders. Men scattered, collecting supplies to raise tents and prepare fire pits while others spread out to hunt.

  Maili burst through the cover, descending the staircase like a mountain goat running along a cliff’s edge. She nearly knocked General Seung over. She muttered an apology as she passed, worry scrunching her face.

  “Maili, did you—”

  She dashed past me toward the pond where I’d first met her with the elephants.

  Please, please, please let her find Zakur and her elephants… alive.

  The men who’d followed her descended the stairs, frowning.

  I walked among the sweaty men hammering tent pegs or dividing rations, with an armful of kindling, seeking fire pits ready to ignite.

  Maili reappeared with Zakur. Her face more relaxed than I’d seen since we picked her up early this summer—a lifetime ago. Zakur grinned and squeezed her shoulder as they neared. She stumbled into him and flashing a shy smile in return.

  Thank You, God.

  Declan watched his betrothed. Judging from his goofy grin, he was as relieved as I was. I guess he wasn’t in love with her. Or perhaps he cared about her happiness more than his own.