Shadowdeath wind episode.., p.7
Shadowdeath Wind: Episodes & Excursions: Book 1, page 7
“All engines, ahead full, aye, Captain,” Tara said with almost no break in the rhythm she kept.
Preparing FAX pods.
Just a little space between Ghost and the Miniak and he could loose an inferno. With yet another Western weapons system. He’d used fuel-air explosives only one time before—to save his son—and swore never to use them again after seeing the utter destruction. But he really did know better than to swear such things.
The frenetic chanting ceased abruptly like the snapping of a blacksteel cable. Sei Javala staggered and crumpled against the communications console. One big step and Rodonovan was there to help him back to his feet. Breathing hard, the old sorcerer nodded once, clasped Rodonovan’s forearm with slender fingers banded by delicate gold rings. At the navigation console, Greensticks helped Tara off the floor. “Javala?” Rodonovan said. A raging silence filled his head.
“The sounding charm has been damaged.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course… Just a bit of a shock. We’ll have onboard communication, albeit of diminished clarity, but we’ve lost all external communication. Until I can see to the sounding charm, Kai Ferracane is on his own.” Sei Javala steadied himself and closed his eyes. A moment later, broken thoughts jerked through Rodonovan’s mind, truncated as if struck by thick hatchets of silence. “Hm. Won’t be easy to understand.”
“No.”
“How long can you keep that up?”
“As long as necessary.”
Rodonovan doubted that, but did not press. Master Bones? He had to repeat that twice more before JackLuck responded.
Aye, Cap—?
Stand by in the bay.
Rep—tain, you’re bre—up.
Stand by. Stand by in the bay.
Standing by, aye—
As Ghost bellowed and picked up speed, Rodonovan leaned over the navigation console, peering out through the cracked and crazed panorama glass to watch the Western machine climb sharply into the fathomless sky, whirling insanely as weapons fire knitted the black sky all around it. He’d yet to meet a ship that could stay with Ghost running all engines and hope chilled his flesh. But red filled his vision. A cage of lightning slammed down around the helicopter. It wobbled, slowed, began to tumble.
ELEVEN
Kai targeted and fired the last of his Deathstalkers and climbed in a vertical spiral to avoid fire. He realized that he no longer had the chatter of sailors in his head.
[All area weapons systems overheating. Moving to mandatory cooldown standby. Damage to hub assembly; damage to number one pitch housing; damage to number two pitch housing; damage to number one lead-lag link. Recommend RTB.]
Kai terminated the Vipra’s ascent to survey the battlespace. The air turned red and exploded, and for a moment he thought he’d been hit by surface fire. Then the sky was black again and he realized he’d been struck by lightning.
The helicopter’s engines choked, the console went black, and the controls stiffened. [Power loss. All systems down. Shifting to auxiliary reserve.]
With a humming whine, power returned as the heli slowed and bobbled. Kai regained control.
[Mission avionics destroyed. All area weapons systems overheated and in mandatory cooldown standby. Damage to hub assembly; damage to number—Hostile lock on, take evasive action.]
Somebody had him. Kai looked for the enemy. Override—
[Hostile lock on, take evasive action. Hostile lock on, take evas—]
[Hostile lock—Hostile lock on, take evasive action.]
[Host—Hostile lock on, take—Hostile lock on, take evasive action. Hostile—]
A lot of somebodies had him.
[Sending distress signal.]
“Damn,” Kai muttered.
Miniak weapons lit the blackened day with a fusillade of fire. Rodonovan watched the helicopter come apart, twirl and plummet to the Aestiva ahead of Helldiver’s Ghost. A billowing curl of blackened fire marked its descent like some kind of dumbstruck question tattooed in soot across the bluing sky.
Enemy fire fell off to nothing as Ghost left the Miniak gunships behind. It passed over the burning debris patch that marked Kai Ferracane’s grave.
FAX… ready… —tain.
Climbing the back of one last swell was like crossing a threshold into a new world. The Aestiva soothed to a rumpled sheet reflecting the sapphire overhead, and the storm of war faded. Helldiver’s Ghost slashed through the water.
I want a damage report all stations, now, Rodonovan thought, wondering if Ghost had actually gotten away. He repeated the request.
Sailors returned broken acknowledgements. Frustrated, Rodonovan slapped a toggle on Tara’s console. The all-clear alarm sounded.
Master Squeezebox?
After a pause that made Rodonovan’s heart flutter. Aye, Captain.
I need you—bridge.
Another pause. Aye.
Bay?
Bay, aye—
Ple—secure doors… clear the bay.
Secur—doors and blowing… Captain.
Master Bones?
Aye, Captain.
Please—Mas—Revenant that… Ferracane… down.
Please re—tain, you’re br—ing—
Tell Revenant his friend is dead!
Aye, Cap—
Dexter laughed. “Nah,” he said with an annoying mug. He hefted his shoulders against the relic slung there. Clearly the thing was uncomfortably heavy.
Cinnamon realized then that she didn’t much care for Dexter Revenant. None of the Westerners really. Their smugness, their… airs. With their agenda. Trading weapons for haven. Western currency seemed always to be violence. “No?”
“No.” Dismissive. “He’s a Dagian Guard CATT operator. Covert activities, domo.” Waggled his eyebrows. Got nothing, so said: “Steals magical shit from belligerent empires… Swims with sharks? No? Kai Ferracane doesn’t die.”
“He was shot out of the sky,” JackLuck said, annoying Cinnamon further for even responding like they were having some kind of normal conversation with a normal person instead of a living arsehair. He leaned in toward Dexter, huge and looking as irritated as Cinnamon felt. The old Wavery fighting knife dangled in Dexter’s face. Huge long fingers formed a sphere. “They say his ship come apart—Poof!—like that.”
Dexter’s mouth drooped in an unimpressed shrug. “He doesn’t land either.”
The bay doors slid shut with an echoing clank, cutting off the brightness of the renewed day and the smoldering nightmare they fast left behind. Lights dropped gold cones on the dark water and the launches and fast attack boats moored to the narrow dock that ran around the bay’s three sides. The red evacuation light began to whirl and the alarm sounded, drowning out the stand-down signal. The three of them cupped their ears as powerful pumps blew the water from the bay, draining it quickly. The alarm silenced and the red light turned off. The launches and FABs, secured to the dock, hung suspended over nothingness. Thumps and bumps resounded throughout the bay, and the murmurs of sailors walking the dock checking the hull and mechanisms for damage blurred with the echoing gabble of dripping water.
JackLuck picked up the conversation. “I don’t even know what means, lubber.”
Cinnamon’s head ached, and the rank blend of seawater and fuel fumes, the casualty reports lacing her thoughts like stuttered lunacy, weren’t helping. That she wouldn’t be stuck on a launch with Dexter Revenant was a minor blessing; he seemed little more than an obnoxious façade hiding, no, protecting, something mealy and weak.
“It was a running joke among the RATTs,” he said amiably as if having a chat in a tavern where ale and meat scented the air and not fire and blood. “Well, all of the DGs, really. Kai Ferracane seemed to make a habit of crashing helis. He walked away from them all.”
“Right, his much-touted piloting prowess.”
Dexter gave Cinnamon a big grin, brittle beneath eyes bright with uncertainty. “That you’re standing here roasting him seems to confirm that.”
“I doubt he walked away from this one,” JackLuck said. “Swim maybe. Sink most likely…” His eyes took on the middle-distance stare that came when receiving a personal thought on the com-web. “Captain wants you and that relic of yours in his stateroom, Dexter. He is a merciful man.” He held out a giant hand. “No weapons.” Dexter seemed about to protest, then handed over the C-CAPS.
“I’ll be in my cabin,” Cinnamon said through gritted teeth, letting the men’s responses tap weakly off her back as she headed toward the bay’s oval doorway. On the com-web, the broken drone indicated that Ghost had been hard hit, with some moderately serious hull damage, nearly a dozen gun positions destroyed or damaged, hard comms down, and a high body count. So soon after the tussle with the Flying Sprite… With Sei Javala’s sounding charm damaged, Helldiver’s Ghost was silent to the outside world. Rodonovan had long ago secured mooring rights with Chiming Harbor, some fifteen leagues inside the Misty Broom, where they allowed him to anchor a supply barge. Hull breaches, weapons systems, comms, and other damage would be repaired; new sailors were another story.
Cinnamon wanted dark rum and a hot shower, knowing she’d be more likely to get the former than the latter. More than either, she wanted a good cry, but on this ship, any ship, no sailor could afford such a luxury. That Kai Ferracane was dead meant nothing. Her whole life, people had suddenly been ripped away from her. Far more important people than that untouchable Westerner with the devil’s eyes could ever have been. Yet, dread spidered through her.
TWELVE
A ruckus of colors jagged over the mouth of the strait called Misty Broom because of the heavy fogs that swept through it nearly every eventide. Through the now glassless window framing, Rodonovan watched the hump and dive of the colorful arc changing in the same slow way a cloud morphs. The wind of Ghost’s speed howled around the damaged bridge, pulled tears from his eyes; he’d opted not to wear the goggles that the other sailors wore to pilot the ship. Rodonovan had taken Ambra to the Broom years ago—before Omen was born—to watch the vast butterfly migration called the Rainbow Bridge. Not a bow of colors spanning the strait in orderly bands, the Rainbow Bridge smeared the air like a painter’s genius afterthought, and he and Ambra had stood on the bow and raced each other to pick out different shades. Everyone had thought he’d married the daughter of a Wavery warlord for the alliance it brought. He wished that had been true.
He’d seen the Rainbow Bridge a couple of times since, found the silent march of the insects simultaneously breathtaking and soothing. Now he stared with little interest. His anxiety had shifted from battle fear to what part of him knew was irrational pathos over Ghost’s condition.
The dead had been returned to the sea in a short and strained ceremony conducted by Sei Javala. Seventeen more sailors for a total of twenty-three in two days. While not as terrible as the Trilly massacre six years ago, the crew had certainly been depleted.
He’d planned to put Ferracane and his cursed loot ashore at Chiming Harbor and ask who among the sailors of the Flying Sprite might join the Westerner or sail with Ghost. Then he’d return to the Myriads. But Ferracane was dead, and he couldn’t quite get himself to free the sailors from the hold. And he had nothing to return to and no way to ascertain where else he might find familiar haven. By the hells, he had no way of knowing if Goblin Rod prowled Fool’s Cap, wondering what had happened to Ghost, or if he had found his own troubles.
For Rodonovan’s entire life, the self-proclaimed First Nations had been his enemy; his overriding quest, the return to his ancestral lands of Taelemone. That pursuit had, over time, succumbed to the cancer of politics and mutated into civil war. He had been a principal part of that, especially after the Black Tombs debacle. How the First Nations must love watching us kill each other. The Myriadians were further from regaining Taelemone than ever and now such a desire seemed small-minded.
The eastern side of the strait, which the locals called the Strait of Shandra Razh, the Moon King, spilled into the Far Ocean. If he could negotiate passage with the reclusive tribes that jealously held and squabbled over bits of the Strait, Rodonovan could take the less cantankerous southern route around the Dead Continent and sail to the farthest East. With any luck, they might find the Drakar’s Fan, and with questionable old charts and Sei Javala’s magicks, they could navigate the unnavigable maze of the Aqua Reticula and meet the West from its western backside.
They could do all that. Or one of a dozen tribes might slaughter the crew. Or the Far Ocean might drown them with a rogue wave. Or the phantoms of the Dead Continent might overwhelm them. The Aqua Reticula might simply lose them.
And if they made it where countless others failed?
It shocked him sometimes, how much he missed Omen, but to be by his son’s side again only to be fighting a war he couldn’t comprehend left him feeling twisted, confused. He despised this new sense of helplessness.
Rodonovan had made sure to walk among the crew before returning to the bridge. He praised their defense of Ghost and their care for her now. He laughed with them—that forced near strident evacuation of nervous energy—tossed drams of rum and whisky to their fallen comrades. For the most part, they seemed to understand that, this time, he had not chosen the battle, that this was something far, far different. Yet in their eyes, Rodonovan had seen the dimming of the light that all captains feared.
It looked like they would make Chiming Harbor near dawn. With the com-web and hard communications gear offline, he had doubts he’d be able to hail the prefect to give the customary notice of their arrival once inside the Misty Broom. He’d also like to know if the city-state had seen any of the kind of action they’d just sailed out of. Sei Javala’s efforts to reconstitute the sounding charm had borne little fruit. That the sorcerer’s hearth of rare metals and stones might be ruined was just another grim prospect.
“I’ll be in my stateroom,” he told the two sailors on duty. He left the bridge. Mantra swooped from the forecastle to settle on his shoulder. Soaking Madge trailed after him. Though he could do without a crowd in the stateroom, he didn’t order her away. That she was unwilling to stand down vexed him in a strangely welcome way. Javala, please meet me in my stateroom. He repeated the order to make sure it was understood.
Aye.
Dexter Revenant curled on the velvet-wrapped sofa when Rodonovan entered the stateroom. The Westerner’s mouth gawped in slumber, and he clung to the relic as if hugging a favorite toy. A devastated decanter of port stood on the cherrywood map table beside a half-full snifter. Rodonovan grunted: price paid for locking the Westerner in his stateroom for the day. Soaking Madge moved to the small inglenook and sat on a teak bench. Any bare bulkhead had been painted olive and layered with shelves of leather-wrapped books, dark cherrywood wainscoting, moldings, and floor. Beside his teak rocker, the lava rock hearth glowed red. Rodonovan acknowledged the room to be an extravagance, particularly as he spent little time there, berthing most often in the cramped at-sea cabin behind the bridge; but the place had been his sanctum, a place to meditate, confront his daemons, and rejuvenate while his sailors caroused about the Aestiva’s countless ports of call. Not to mention a place to woo various captains, public officials, so-called dignitaries, and lickspittles from around the Rim. Now, the natural warmth of the room was gone, replaced with a cloying and funereal dimness.
“Up,” he said, nudging Revenant’s shoulder. The soldier emitted a low moan and tried to roll over, halting halfway through at a lean against the sofa’s back. Rodonovan bumped him again, a little less gently. The Dagian Guard’s eyes fluttered. “Wha-a…” He grimaced, smacked his lips. Seeing Rodonovan looming over him, Revenant propped himself up on an elbow, grimaced again. “Ugh.”
“Guzzling a fifty-year-old tawny will elicit such a response.”
“Nothing else to do; nothing else available,” Revenant said groggily. He rubbed a hand over his head, then flipped it out: see for yourself.
Sei Javala entered the stateroom and sat at the table.
“Any luck?” Rodonovan asked him.
“I have been able to repair the hard equipment, and I understand the damage to the charm.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“I need a sustained period of concentration on the problem.”
“So why did I ask you here, your tone indicates?” Rodonovan pulled the rocker close to the sofa and sat. Mantra cooed, flapped her supple variegated wings. Javala tipped his chin. “Let’s talk about this relic of yours,” Rodonovan said to the Westerner.
“It’s not mine,” Revenant said.
“What is it?”
“Who knows? Seems a weapon to me. Take a look yourself. I don’t think even Kai knows.”
Rodonovan ignored the present tense. “Javala?”
Javala undid the leather thongs, eased back the leather flap, and slid the sheath down the length of the relic as if undressing a lover. The rise of his thin eyebrows and flare of his nostrils startled Rodonovan. “It is an empire builder, an empire killer,” the sei said. “It is wealth beyond imagining.”
Rodonovan frowned. “All very… dramatic. Is it what it appears to be?”
“It is a key,” Sei Javala said. “The Key.”
“To what?”
Sei Javala paused as if debating speaking. “To everything,” he said.
Rodonovan didn’t know what to do with such grandiose opacity. He turned back to Revenant. “Ferracane told you to take it to Zahariad. My knowledge of Seven Valleys geography is sketchy at best. Where exactly is that?”
“In the eastern Maidenstones.”
“It’s the city of the Claymage, Zahariad is,” Sei Javala said. He replaced the flap and quickly retied the leathers. His fingers anxiously massaged his chin. “This is for her Hunter. It is the Key. And perhaps in her hands, it is the most powerful, most dangerous weapon ever.”
“Maidenstones are mountains?” Rodonovan said, discomfited by Javala’s reaction. “Where relative to the western coast?”
Preparing FAX pods.
Just a little space between Ghost and the Miniak and he could loose an inferno. With yet another Western weapons system. He’d used fuel-air explosives only one time before—to save his son—and swore never to use them again after seeing the utter destruction. But he really did know better than to swear such things.
The frenetic chanting ceased abruptly like the snapping of a blacksteel cable. Sei Javala staggered and crumpled against the communications console. One big step and Rodonovan was there to help him back to his feet. Breathing hard, the old sorcerer nodded once, clasped Rodonovan’s forearm with slender fingers banded by delicate gold rings. At the navigation console, Greensticks helped Tara off the floor. “Javala?” Rodonovan said. A raging silence filled his head.
“The sounding charm has been damaged.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course… Just a bit of a shock. We’ll have onboard communication, albeit of diminished clarity, but we’ve lost all external communication. Until I can see to the sounding charm, Kai Ferracane is on his own.” Sei Javala steadied himself and closed his eyes. A moment later, broken thoughts jerked through Rodonovan’s mind, truncated as if struck by thick hatchets of silence. “Hm. Won’t be easy to understand.”
“No.”
“How long can you keep that up?”
“As long as necessary.”
Rodonovan doubted that, but did not press. Master Bones? He had to repeat that twice more before JackLuck responded.
Aye, Cap—?
Stand by in the bay.
Rep—tain, you’re bre—up.
Stand by. Stand by in the bay.
Standing by, aye—
As Ghost bellowed and picked up speed, Rodonovan leaned over the navigation console, peering out through the cracked and crazed panorama glass to watch the Western machine climb sharply into the fathomless sky, whirling insanely as weapons fire knitted the black sky all around it. He’d yet to meet a ship that could stay with Ghost running all engines and hope chilled his flesh. But red filled his vision. A cage of lightning slammed down around the helicopter. It wobbled, slowed, began to tumble.
ELEVEN
Kai targeted and fired the last of his Deathstalkers and climbed in a vertical spiral to avoid fire. He realized that he no longer had the chatter of sailors in his head.
[All area weapons systems overheating. Moving to mandatory cooldown standby. Damage to hub assembly; damage to number one pitch housing; damage to number two pitch housing; damage to number one lead-lag link. Recommend RTB.]
Kai terminated the Vipra’s ascent to survey the battlespace. The air turned red and exploded, and for a moment he thought he’d been hit by surface fire. Then the sky was black again and he realized he’d been struck by lightning.
The helicopter’s engines choked, the console went black, and the controls stiffened. [Power loss. All systems down. Shifting to auxiliary reserve.]
With a humming whine, power returned as the heli slowed and bobbled. Kai regained control.
[Mission avionics destroyed. All area weapons systems overheated and in mandatory cooldown standby. Damage to hub assembly; damage to number—Hostile lock on, take evasive action.]
Somebody had him. Kai looked for the enemy. Override—
[Hostile lock on, take evasive action. Hostile lock on, take evas—]
[Hostile lock—Hostile lock on, take evasive action.]
[Host—Hostile lock on, take—Hostile lock on, take evasive action. Hostile—]
A lot of somebodies had him.
[Sending distress signal.]
“Damn,” Kai muttered.
Miniak weapons lit the blackened day with a fusillade of fire. Rodonovan watched the helicopter come apart, twirl and plummet to the Aestiva ahead of Helldiver’s Ghost. A billowing curl of blackened fire marked its descent like some kind of dumbstruck question tattooed in soot across the bluing sky.
Enemy fire fell off to nothing as Ghost left the Miniak gunships behind. It passed over the burning debris patch that marked Kai Ferracane’s grave.
FAX… ready… —tain.
Climbing the back of one last swell was like crossing a threshold into a new world. The Aestiva soothed to a rumpled sheet reflecting the sapphire overhead, and the storm of war faded. Helldiver’s Ghost slashed through the water.
I want a damage report all stations, now, Rodonovan thought, wondering if Ghost had actually gotten away. He repeated the request.
Sailors returned broken acknowledgements. Frustrated, Rodonovan slapped a toggle on Tara’s console. The all-clear alarm sounded.
Master Squeezebox?
After a pause that made Rodonovan’s heart flutter. Aye, Captain.
I need you—bridge.
Another pause. Aye.
Bay?
Bay, aye—
Ple—secure doors… clear the bay.
Secur—doors and blowing… Captain.
Master Bones?
Aye, Captain.
Please—Mas—Revenant that… Ferracane… down.
Please re—tain, you’re br—ing—
Tell Revenant his friend is dead!
Aye, Cap—
Dexter laughed. “Nah,” he said with an annoying mug. He hefted his shoulders against the relic slung there. Clearly the thing was uncomfortably heavy.
Cinnamon realized then that she didn’t much care for Dexter Revenant. None of the Westerners really. Their smugness, their… airs. With their agenda. Trading weapons for haven. Western currency seemed always to be violence. “No?”
“No.” Dismissive. “He’s a Dagian Guard CATT operator. Covert activities, domo.” Waggled his eyebrows. Got nothing, so said: “Steals magical shit from belligerent empires… Swims with sharks? No? Kai Ferracane doesn’t die.”
“He was shot out of the sky,” JackLuck said, annoying Cinnamon further for even responding like they were having some kind of normal conversation with a normal person instead of a living arsehair. He leaned in toward Dexter, huge and looking as irritated as Cinnamon felt. The old Wavery fighting knife dangled in Dexter’s face. Huge long fingers formed a sphere. “They say his ship come apart—Poof!—like that.”
Dexter’s mouth drooped in an unimpressed shrug. “He doesn’t land either.”
The bay doors slid shut with an echoing clank, cutting off the brightness of the renewed day and the smoldering nightmare they fast left behind. Lights dropped gold cones on the dark water and the launches and fast attack boats moored to the narrow dock that ran around the bay’s three sides. The red evacuation light began to whirl and the alarm sounded, drowning out the stand-down signal. The three of them cupped their ears as powerful pumps blew the water from the bay, draining it quickly. The alarm silenced and the red light turned off. The launches and FABs, secured to the dock, hung suspended over nothingness. Thumps and bumps resounded throughout the bay, and the murmurs of sailors walking the dock checking the hull and mechanisms for damage blurred with the echoing gabble of dripping water.
JackLuck picked up the conversation. “I don’t even know what means, lubber.”
Cinnamon’s head ached, and the rank blend of seawater and fuel fumes, the casualty reports lacing her thoughts like stuttered lunacy, weren’t helping. That she wouldn’t be stuck on a launch with Dexter Revenant was a minor blessing; he seemed little more than an obnoxious façade hiding, no, protecting, something mealy and weak.
“It was a running joke among the RATTs,” he said amiably as if having a chat in a tavern where ale and meat scented the air and not fire and blood. “Well, all of the DGs, really. Kai Ferracane seemed to make a habit of crashing helis. He walked away from them all.”
“Right, his much-touted piloting prowess.”
Dexter gave Cinnamon a big grin, brittle beneath eyes bright with uncertainty. “That you’re standing here roasting him seems to confirm that.”
“I doubt he walked away from this one,” JackLuck said. “Swim maybe. Sink most likely…” His eyes took on the middle-distance stare that came when receiving a personal thought on the com-web. “Captain wants you and that relic of yours in his stateroom, Dexter. He is a merciful man.” He held out a giant hand. “No weapons.” Dexter seemed about to protest, then handed over the C-CAPS.
“I’ll be in my cabin,” Cinnamon said through gritted teeth, letting the men’s responses tap weakly off her back as she headed toward the bay’s oval doorway. On the com-web, the broken drone indicated that Ghost had been hard hit, with some moderately serious hull damage, nearly a dozen gun positions destroyed or damaged, hard comms down, and a high body count. So soon after the tussle with the Flying Sprite… With Sei Javala’s sounding charm damaged, Helldiver’s Ghost was silent to the outside world. Rodonovan had long ago secured mooring rights with Chiming Harbor, some fifteen leagues inside the Misty Broom, where they allowed him to anchor a supply barge. Hull breaches, weapons systems, comms, and other damage would be repaired; new sailors were another story.
Cinnamon wanted dark rum and a hot shower, knowing she’d be more likely to get the former than the latter. More than either, she wanted a good cry, but on this ship, any ship, no sailor could afford such a luxury. That Kai Ferracane was dead meant nothing. Her whole life, people had suddenly been ripped away from her. Far more important people than that untouchable Westerner with the devil’s eyes could ever have been. Yet, dread spidered through her.
TWELVE
A ruckus of colors jagged over the mouth of the strait called Misty Broom because of the heavy fogs that swept through it nearly every eventide. Through the now glassless window framing, Rodonovan watched the hump and dive of the colorful arc changing in the same slow way a cloud morphs. The wind of Ghost’s speed howled around the damaged bridge, pulled tears from his eyes; he’d opted not to wear the goggles that the other sailors wore to pilot the ship. Rodonovan had taken Ambra to the Broom years ago—before Omen was born—to watch the vast butterfly migration called the Rainbow Bridge. Not a bow of colors spanning the strait in orderly bands, the Rainbow Bridge smeared the air like a painter’s genius afterthought, and he and Ambra had stood on the bow and raced each other to pick out different shades. Everyone had thought he’d married the daughter of a Wavery warlord for the alliance it brought. He wished that had been true.
He’d seen the Rainbow Bridge a couple of times since, found the silent march of the insects simultaneously breathtaking and soothing. Now he stared with little interest. His anxiety had shifted from battle fear to what part of him knew was irrational pathos over Ghost’s condition.
The dead had been returned to the sea in a short and strained ceremony conducted by Sei Javala. Seventeen more sailors for a total of twenty-three in two days. While not as terrible as the Trilly massacre six years ago, the crew had certainly been depleted.
He’d planned to put Ferracane and his cursed loot ashore at Chiming Harbor and ask who among the sailors of the Flying Sprite might join the Westerner or sail with Ghost. Then he’d return to the Myriads. But Ferracane was dead, and he couldn’t quite get himself to free the sailors from the hold. And he had nothing to return to and no way to ascertain where else he might find familiar haven. By the hells, he had no way of knowing if Goblin Rod prowled Fool’s Cap, wondering what had happened to Ghost, or if he had found his own troubles.
For Rodonovan’s entire life, the self-proclaimed First Nations had been his enemy; his overriding quest, the return to his ancestral lands of Taelemone. That pursuit had, over time, succumbed to the cancer of politics and mutated into civil war. He had been a principal part of that, especially after the Black Tombs debacle. How the First Nations must love watching us kill each other. The Myriadians were further from regaining Taelemone than ever and now such a desire seemed small-minded.
The eastern side of the strait, which the locals called the Strait of Shandra Razh, the Moon King, spilled into the Far Ocean. If he could negotiate passage with the reclusive tribes that jealously held and squabbled over bits of the Strait, Rodonovan could take the less cantankerous southern route around the Dead Continent and sail to the farthest East. With any luck, they might find the Drakar’s Fan, and with questionable old charts and Sei Javala’s magicks, they could navigate the unnavigable maze of the Aqua Reticula and meet the West from its western backside.
They could do all that. Or one of a dozen tribes might slaughter the crew. Or the Far Ocean might drown them with a rogue wave. Or the phantoms of the Dead Continent might overwhelm them. The Aqua Reticula might simply lose them.
And if they made it where countless others failed?
It shocked him sometimes, how much he missed Omen, but to be by his son’s side again only to be fighting a war he couldn’t comprehend left him feeling twisted, confused. He despised this new sense of helplessness.
Rodonovan had made sure to walk among the crew before returning to the bridge. He praised their defense of Ghost and their care for her now. He laughed with them—that forced near strident evacuation of nervous energy—tossed drams of rum and whisky to their fallen comrades. For the most part, they seemed to understand that, this time, he had not chosen the battle, that this was something far, far different. Yet in their eyes, Rodonovan had seen the dimming of the light that all captains feared.
It looked like they would make Chiming Harbor near dawn. With the com-web and hard communications gear offline, he had doubts he’d be able to hail the prefect to give the customary notice of their arrival once inside the Misty Broom. He’d also like to know if the city-state had seen any of the kind of action they’d just sailed out of. Sei Javala’s efforts to reconstitute the sounding charm had borne little fruit. That the sorcerer’s hearth of rare metals and stones might be ruined was just another grim prospect.
“I’ll be in my stateroom,” he told the two sailors on duty. He left the bridge. Mantra swooped from the forecastle to settle on his shoulder. Soaking Madge trailed after him. Though he could do without a crowd in the stateroom, he didn’t order her away. That she was unwilling to stand down vexed him in a strangely welcome way. Javala, please meet me in my stateroom. He repeated the order to make sure it was understood.
Aye.
Dexter Revenant curled on the velvet-wrapped sofa when Rodonovan entered the stateroom. The Westerner’s mouth gawped in slumber, and he clung to the relic as if hugging a favorite toy. A devastated decanter of port stood on the cherrywood map table beside a half-full snifter. Rodonovan grunted: price paid for locking the Westerner in his stateroom for the day. Soaking Madge moved to the small inglenook and sat on a teak bench. Any bare bulkhead had been painted olive and layered with shelves of leather-wrapped books, dark cherrywood wainscoting, moldings, and floor. Beside his teak rocker, the lava rock hearth glowed red. Rodonovan acknowledged the room to be an extravagance, particularly as he spent little time there, berthing most often in the cramped at-sea cabin behind the bridge; but the place had been his sanctum, a place to meditate, confront his daemons, and rejuvenate while his sailors caroused about the Aestiva’s countless ports of call. Not to mention a place to woo various captains, public officials, so-called dignitaries, and lickspittles from around the Rim. Now, the natural warmth of the room was gone, replaced with a cloying and funereal dimness.
“Up,” he said, nudging Revenant’s shoulder. The soldier emitted a low moan and tried to roll over, halting halfway through at a lean against the sofa’s back. Rodonovan bumped him again, a little less gently. The Dagian Guard’s eyes fluttered. “Wha-a…” He grimaced, smacked his lips. Seeing Rodonovan looming over him, Revenant propped himself up on an elbow, grimaced again. “Ugh.”
“Guzzling a fifty-year-old tawny will elicit such a response.”
“Nothing else to do; nothing else available,” Revenant said groggily. He rubbed a hand over his head, then flipped it out: see for yourself.
Sei Javala entered the stateroom and sat at the table.
“Any luck?” Rodonovan asked him.
“I have been able to repair the hard equipment, and I understand the damage to the charm.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“I need a sustained period of concentration on the problem.”
“So why did I ask you here, your tone indicates?” Rodonovan pulled the rocker close to the sofa and sat. Mantra cooed, flapped her supple variegated wings. Javala tipped his chin. “Let’s talk about this relic of yours,” Rodonovan said to the Westerner.
“It’s not mine,” Revenant said.
“What is it?”
“Who knows? Seems a weapon to me. Take a look yourself. I don’t think even Kai knows.”
Rodonovan ignored the present tense. “Javala?”
Javala undid the leather thongs, eased back the leather flap, and slid the sheath down the length of the relic as if undressing a lover. The rise of his thin eyebrows and flare of his nostrils startled Rodonovan. “It is an empire builder, an empire killer,” the sei said. “It is wealth beyond imagining.”
Rodonovan frowned. “All very… dramatic. Is it what it appears to be?”
“It is a key,” Sei Javala said. “The Key.”
“To what?”
Sei Javala paused as if debating speaking. “To everything,” he said.
Rodonovan didn’t know what to do with such grandiose opacity. He turned back to Revenant. “Ferracane told you to take it to Zahariad. My knowledge of Seven Valleys geography is sketchy at best. Where exactly is that?”
“In the eastern Maidenstones.”
“It’s the city of the Claymage, Zahariad is,” Sei Javala said. He replaced the flap and quickly retied the leathers. His fingers anxiously massaged his chin. “This is for her Hunter. It is the Key. And perhaps in her hands, it is the most powerful, most dangerous weapon ever.”
“Maidenstones are mountains?” Rodonovan said, discomfited by Javala’s reaction. “Where relative to the western coast?”
