by A. C. Cobble
A light rain fell, presumably fueling the streams that ran over the edges. The entire place looked damp, as if the moisture was a constant, though surely sunlight must shine on the floating city periodically for the plants to grow. As they came closer, they saw that the structures of the city grew larger as the tiers rose. The top of the city was ringed in what looked to be palaces, but even at the edges near the forests, they saw no mean hovels. There was nothing like the poor villages that clung to the riverbanks that they’d seen on the way south.
“No sense wasting our time at the bottom,” remarked Oliver. He urged the life spirits within the stones in the hold to rise.
The palaces at the top were much the same as the buildings below but far larger. They were built of the ubiquitous pale gray stone and ringed with columned porticos. A dozen of them surrounded a huge, open garden. It was carefully manicured, small trees and shrubbery ringing a large, pebble-strewn circle in the center. In the circle, sat a massive dragon. Its sides were painted in vivid purple designs, and it turned to look at them as they sailed closer.
“Same one, you think?” questioned Sam.
Oliver nodded. “I don’t see any others, and it looks to be the same size.”
“There was at least one smaller one we fought last night that escaped,” worried Sam.
Oliver looked over the rest of the city, but he saw no signs of another dragon, just the one, sitting in the center on top of the mountain. A small figure stood beside it.
Without word, Ainsley directed the crew, and they drifted closer to the open court. Oliver smirked when he felt the vessel turn, showing their side to the huge lizard beneath them. Ainsley was making sure the heavy guns faced it, though the creature showed no inclination to attack.
“I’ll go down,” said Oliver.
“I’m coming with you,” insisted Sam.
He nodded. He suspected she would. Sam wasn’t going to miss this.
“I as well,” declared Ainsley.
Used to the women’s insistence on coming every time he disembarked, Oliver didn’t bother to argue. He knew it would get him nowhere. Instead, he turned his thoughts to what waited below.
“Captain,” called one of the crew. He was pointing up, far above them.
Oliver gasped. The Franklin’s Luck was drifting there, half-hidden by the cloud. Its sails were down, and there appeared to be no one onboard. The airship looked like it had simply sailed there, battened down, and then been abandoned.
“This is weird,” whispered Sam.
Oliver and Ainsley could only nod.
Half an hour later, they were in range to drop lines over the edge. The trio pulled on their gloves and climbed over the side. Oliver wished he could bring more of the crew with them — a few more blunderbusses in the party would give him some comfort — but as short-handed as they were, he wanted every able-bodied man standing ready to man the sails or the cannon, depending on how they were received.
Their boots touched on the pebbles, and he let go of the rope.
Ainsley checked her pistols, Sam her daggers, and Oliver patted his broadsword.
“You brought the katars?” asked Sam, looking at him.
“I did,” he confirmed.
“Be ready with them,” she warned. “Duke… be ready for a surprise.”
He nodded, looking at the person standing beside the dragon. The woman who’d ridden it out to greet them in the clouds, he realized. He wondered, “What? She thinks we’re going to walk into range of that thing’s flame?”
“What else are you planning to do?” asked Sam. “She doesn’t look like she’s in any hurry to come to us. We’ve already come all of this way, so we may as well go talk to her.”
Muttering under his breath, Oliver glanced back at the Cloud Serpent to make sure Pettybone and the crew were prepared to unleash the cannon if necessary, and then he led the party forward. They walked two hundred yards and stopped a dozen from the woman. Close enough Ainsley would have an accurate shot with her pistols, or Sam might be able to land one of her daggers if she had to throw it, but also close enough that they wouldn’t have time to flee from the dragon’s fire before it torched them.
The woman appeared unarmed, but she was dressed in intricately fashioned armor. A sturdy, black-dyed leather brigandine covered her torso with thick pauldrons on her shoulders. Her legs were covered by stiff greaves and she wore articulated gauntlets that rose all the way up to her elbows. The lower half of her face was guarded by a leather mask.
“Who are you?” he asked her.
“You don’t know?” she replied, sounding curious.
He frowned. The voice was familiar, but…
“What are you doing here?” asked the woman, her king’s tongue confident but slow, as if she was fluent but had little chance to speak the language. “What does Enhover want with the Darklands?”
“How do you know we’re from Enhover?” he demanded.
The woman stared back at him, silent.
He glanced up at the Franklin’s Luck and then to the woman. “Why did the Imbonese abscond with one of our airships and sail it here?”
“How else would they get here?” she wondered.
“What’s the answer?” he demanded. “What’s the reason they came here?”
“Come with me,” she said and then turned and began walking toward one of the palaces that ringed the field.
Oliver glanced at his companions. If they went inside, they would be out of sight and out of range of the cannons. If they were ambushed, Pettybone and the crew wouldn’t even know. They would have no chance to intervene, not even a chance to flee.
“No,” said Oliver, shaking his head at the woman. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell us who you are and where you’re taking us. Tell us what happened to the captives from Imbon and why the natives stole our airship.”
“You have a lot of demands,” remarked the woman. “They stole the airship to return home. They are not natives of that tropical island but of here. Surely you can guess why they needed an airship to perform such a task? As to the captives… I am afraid they are no longer as you may have known them. Their souls were severed from their bodies and then retied through ritual. They are no longer truly living, though they still breathe and their hearts still beat. They are merely thralls to those who bound them. I am willing to turn them over to you, but I do not think you would appreciate it. In time, the bindings will break and their souls will pass to the underworld, or perhaps I shall break the bindings myself and grant them some mercy.”
“W-What…” stammered Oliver, unsure what he should ask next, unsure of what it was she was even telling him. He shifted uneasily then demanded, “The airship those people flew here belongs to Enhover. It must be returned to us.”
The woman nodded. “You may have it back.”
He blinked and ran a hand over his hair, touching the knot at the back. “And, ah, the people who stole it, perhaps their ancestors were from here, but they were living within a Company colony. They are subject to Enhover’s law. They killed hundreds of people before fleeing, and we demand justice for the fallen.”
“Yes,” said the woman. “They spoke of what happened before they fled. There is one who still lives, the sorcerer behind the binding of your people, but the others have been dealt with.”
“Dealt with?” snorted Oliver.
“They are all dead,” explained the woman. “You say they are subject to the laws of your empire, but they are also subject to the laws of ours. In the Darklands, the children are responsible for the crimes of their parents. These people, these refugees, forgot why their ancestors fled. They forgot the crimes that they had committed, what they had stolen, and the punishment that was due.”
“Well, I guess it’s sorted, then,” muttered Ainsley, glancing nervously at the dragon sitting dozens of yards away. The huge creature eyed them passively, shifting slowly and resting its carriage-sized head on the pebbles of the courtyard.
Oliver c
rossed his arms over his chest, trying to suppress a shiver. He felt the hilts of his katars against his arms beneath his jacket. This woman claimed that justice had been served and that they could recover the airship. Their mission was accomplished, and they had no reason to stay longer, but he had so many questions. There was so much left unanswered. The woman was hiding something, despite her apparent openness.
“There is one more matter we should attend to,” said Sam, giving Oliver an apologetic look.
“What is that?” asked the woman, pale, tattoo-rimmed eyes studying the priestess over the leather mask that covered half of her face.
“Lilibet Wellesley, we have reason to believe you were behind the sacrifice of Northundon,” said Sam.
The woman stared back, blank faced.
No one spoke.
Oliver’s heart raced and his stomach roiled. Lilibet Wellesley, his mother? Her voice was not the same, but it was familiar, like another spoke through her lips. Could it… He studied her face, what he could see above the hard, leather mask. Tattoos were scrawled on her pale, white skin. They swirled out from around her eyes, an ever-present mask. Those eyes were cold and flat. They were not his mother’s, but the shape was the same as hers. The brows, the hair, the rise of her cheekbones, now that he was looking closely, it was just as he recalled, even if the woman’s demeanor was nothing like what he remembered.
The woman turned to him and reached up to unhook the mask that covered the bottom half of her face. She pulled it down, and he saw the curve of her chin, her lips, his mother’s lips…
This was his mother.
Unable to stand any longer, Oliver sank to his knees.
He wanted to feel her hug, to hear her laugh, to know what had happened. He wanted to see her eyes twinkle at his antics, see those lips curl into the smile he remembered. He wanted to smell her, to touch her smooth skin. He wanted her to whisper into his ear, to tell him all would be right. He wanted so much, but he couldn’t make himself ask it. He couldn’t make himself speak at all.
“Come with me,” she said and turned.
He watched her walk away.
Sam and Ainsley helped him to his feet, evidently unsurprised at the revelation. They held his arms and supported him as they staggered after the woman— his mother. This time, no one voiced a complaint at following her into the palace, out of sight of their airship and their crew.
Behind them, the dragon snorted and stretched, laying its giant body down on the pebbles as if it was readying for a nap.
Like walking in a dream, they passed through giant stone columns into a wide opening and a hallway. It was an entrance fit for a palace, but there was no door, just empty, open arches. The corridor was the same stone as everything in the city. It was uncarpeted and bare. The palace was hushed, but their boots rang loudly as they hurried after his mother.
His mother…
Oliver nearly jumped when they passed an alcove with two people standing in it. The pair were wearing plain cotton robes, dyed black, with cowls pulled over their heads. Their hands were clasped on their chests, and while the party passed, they stared straight down at the floor.
The hallways and rooms that they passed were sparse, bare stone with no ornamentation, though there was elegant furniture and ample space. They saw more people who Oliver took to be staff. Uniformly, their eyes were downcast and none of them looked up at the strangers in their midst. He saw no luxury materials, no gratuitously displayed wealth, nothing that would signify this was a palace other than the scale of it.
They reached the back of the building and emerged onto a broad, covered patio. Chairs, low couches, and tables were scattered about. A cart on one side held clear decanters filled with wine and an array of silver cups, but it was the view which drew Oliver’s eye.
The patio looked out over the city and the ring of forest beyond. It caused a momentary sense of vertigo, looking down at the successive tiers of buildings falling away below them then the thick band of forest and then nothing but mist. There was no horizon, no land below or in the distance, nothing to anchor the perception that they were on a sturdy floor instead of falling into bottomless ether.
“I presume you’d like a drink?” asked the woman — his mother. “I have wine from the Darklands. An unusual terroir compared to what you would drink in Enhover, but I don’t think you’ll find it unpleasant. I have gin as well, but it all passes through the Southlands before coming here. It is not of the first quality, and I’m afraid sometimes not of the second. Still, there are times when I have a taste for it.”
Oliver worked his mouth, unable to find his words.
“Yes, a drink,” croaked Sam. “For all of us.”
Oliver saw Sam glance at Ainsley, and the captain scurried to the drinks cart and began pouring full cups.
“You are my mother,” said Oliver.
The woman tilted her head, studying him. Finally, she acknowledged, “Yes, you are my son.”
His legs trembled, and he was glad he was still half-leaning on Sam.
Ainsley arrived with a silver cup filled with gin. He drank deeply, struggling to figure out what he wanted to say to the stranger in front of him.
“Why did you sacrifice Northundon?” questioned Sam, one hand still gripping his arm, the other on the hilt of a dagger. She hadn’t yet taken the cup Ainsley offered to her.
Lilibet looked at Sam blank-faced. “Why do you suspect me of sacrificing Northundon?”
“You’re the only known survivor,” said Sam. “You lived. Everyone else died. Who else would we suspect?”
Lilibet pushed back her hood and shook out her long black hair. “Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I understand why you think I was involved, but I was not responsible, not in the way you think. I merely took the opportunity presented. After the event, I came here, and I have remained here for these last, ah, fifteen years?”
“Twenty,” said Oliver, watching his mother’s face. Aside from the mask of tattoos around her eyes and the flatness of those pools to her soul, she looked much as he remembered. Her hair, her skin, it was all the same. It was as if she’d aged months instead of decades.
“The passage of time has little meaning for me,” remarked Lilibet, evidently guessing his thoughts.
He started. He hadn’t seen her looking back at him. He’d been staring, but it was as if he couldn’t see.
Lilibet moved to the railing and gazed down at the city below them. “When the ritual began, I felt it immediately. It was a great pull, a swirling whirlpool that drew me inexorably toward its center. Not understanding, I scrabbled and clung to what I knew. I set hooks and dug in, but I was ripped away, cast into a strange place, a strange land, but not all of me. Part of me held, and I was sundered, confused. I raged, and I fought. I knew I could not win, not as I was. I erred when I held on so tightly. I should have let go, but I took what I needed from the arrangement and fulfilled what was required. And then I fled. I’ve hidden the last… What did you say? Twenty? The last twenty years, I’ve bided my time. My enemies had been felled as a part of our bargain, but I had gained a new one. I felt myself growing weaker day by day, the longer I remained apart and not whole. I maintained my protections. I stayed in hiding, and I waited. One way or the other, I knew I would return to my strength. It is only recently that has happened. I have you to thank for that, Samantha. You allowed me to be nearly whole again.”
Oliver stepped away from Sam, struggling to understand.
“What are you talking about?” demanded the priestess.
Lilibet did not respond, her gaze still down at the city below them.
“We saw the remains of the ritual you conducted,” accused Sam, speaking to the other woman’s back. “The sacrifices you made in that garden. You killed people!”
“Don’t we all?” remarked Lilibet casually.
“I… I…” spluttered Sam. “You admit it? You admit your culpability in Northundon?
“I did not sacrifice the city,” claimed Lilibet, t
urning to face them, “but I have done many other unspeakable things, as have you.”
Sam growled low in her throat and stepped away from Oliver.
He staggered, like he’d been punched. His mother… Her face, her voice, they were familiar but not the same. Her words swirled in his mind like leaves blowing in a windstorm. He recognized them but did not understand them. He couldn’t fathom the form they should take. Her enemies, a part of herself, none of it made any sense.
Sam looked as if she was ready to pounce, to slash and cut with her knives, to do as she always did.
“You’re a sorceress,” accused Oliver.
Lilibet laughed.
“You think it’s funny?” cried Oliver. “You… you—”
“I am not the mother you once knew, Oliver,” said Lilibet. “I think it will be easier for you if you understand that. I cannot offer what you seek. I cannot answer what you ask of me. You should not have come here. You should go home. Go back to Enhover. Do… do whatever it is that you do. This is not your place. You cannot stay here.”
“You cannot stay, either,” snapped Sam. “You’re coming with us. You must face justice or… or else.”
Her lips curling into a mirthless smile, Lilibet shook her head.
“This is not your place,” said Oliver quietly. “Come home with us. Whatever has happened, we can fix. We can… It can be like normal, like it was.”
Lilibet walked to the drinks cart and began pouring herself a cup of wine. “You are right. This is not my place, but Enhover is not my place, either. Perhaps someday I will return there in full, but not yet. I am more than I was recently, but I am not what I was twenty years ago. I am not free. I must gather strength before I face the one who brought me here.”
“Here?” wondered Oliver. “The one who brought you…”
Lilibet turned and raised her glass. “You are better off not knowing, Oliver. You should not have come.”
“No,” he said. “No. Tell me—”
“I will not,” interrupted Lilibet. “Perhaps someday you will understand, and you will know the pain I have tried to save you from. I don’t know if you will thank me, then, but it does not matter. I will not tell you anymore.”
