Snake Heart

by Lindsay Buroker

  Yanko swallowed, not feeling as comforted by his reasoning as he’d hoped.

  Lakeo cursed. “Look out. That stuff is landing.”

  Grayish-orange lava splatted onto the deck, steaming where it struck. Ash was filling the sky, too, and getting indoors sounded like a very good idea. The ironclad’s helmsman was turning the ship, but it would take time to escape, and Yanko wasn’t even sure if they could escape. So far, only the eruption of lava was visible above the surface, but he could feel the seafloor bucking and heaving under the water. The formerly placid waves shivered and jumped all around, and even the big ironclad was affected, rocking as it turned away.

  As more lava plopped down, Yanko started for the stairs, a notion of finding Dak in mind. He didn’t make it more than a step. A squad of soldiers had flooded onto their deck, rifles at the ready. Though Lakeo, Arayevo, and the mage hunter were up there with him, the Turgonians all aimed their weapons at Yanko’s chest.

  “Uh.” He glanced at the lava fountain, which didn’t seem to be losing any of its vigor. “I didn’t do it.”

  The alarms continued to blare from all over the ship, and Yanko did not know if the men heard him. They approached warily, their eyes full of trepidation, but determination as well.

  “Drop your weapons.”

  Yanko tossed his borrowed sword to the deck, where it joined Sun Dragon’s blade, the fancy scimitar no longer glowing.

  “It’s possible I could help with the, uh...” Yanko flicked his fingers toward the interior of the ship, though he didn’t even know where the boiler room was. Dak’s tour hadn’t been that thorough.

  “Shut up,” one of the older soldiers approaching him said, his finger tight on the trigger of his rifle. “And take off that dress.”

  “It’s not a weapon,” Yanko said.

  “Ancestor’s piss, it isn’t. And don’t even think of touching that sword.”

  “I think they saw what you did,” Lakeo muttered, that rare note of awe in her voice again. It was the same tone she’d had when she had realized he’d called up a kraken to destroy a ship. Once again, he did not feel it was deserved. He’d done nothing but nudge an already-building magical charge over the edge.

  He shook his head, as much for her as for the soldiers. He had no wish to remove his clothes, especially with lava raining down—even as he had the thought, one of the soldiers yelped when a clod of lava landed on his shoulder, burning through his uniform.

  “That wasn’t a request,” the older soldier said, not realizing he was echoing Sun Dragon’s earlier words.

  Yanko thought about disarming the men, knocking the rifles aside, or flinging an image of fire into their minds, but with everything else going on, did he truly want to pick a fight? He couldn’t levitate all the way home any more than Sun Dragon could have, and as long as Dak was still alive and on the ship, Yanko shouldn’t be locked up indefinitely. Or killed.

  Yanko unbelted the mage robe and tugged the garment over his head. The soldiers waved for him to strip off his tunic and silk trousers, too, leaving him with only his knee-length smallclothes. They searched even those for hidden weapons. He shivered, enduring the torment. Nothing protected his torso from the spattering lava or the cold wind that had started up.

  “This way, wizard,” the Turgonian growled, leaving the clothes in a heap and jerking his head toward the stairs.

  “Is the boiler still in danger of blowing up?” Yanko did not want to be locked in a cell if the ironclad might explode all around him.

  “Yes.”

  Yanko hesitated. Four of the soldiers came forward, two disarming Arayevo and two more hoisting the mage hunter to her feet.

  “Get them into the brig,” the senior soldier ordered.

  Someone shoved Yanko toward the steps. Once again, he thought about fighting back, about diving overboard, but he told himself that he could escape from a mundane iron-barred cell at any time, with or without his robe. He would go along for now, stay out of the way, and hope to talk to Dak later. If he got a chance, he could tell Dak he might be able to help with the boiler problem. Once he had a quiet moment in his cell, maybe he could even discern the problem with his senses and help solve it.

  Yanko looked back at the sea as the soldiers pushed him toward the steps. He faltered, almost tripping. The lava was still spewing, but it wasn’t the only thing that had broken the surface. In the distance, perhaps two miles away, a ridge had risen above the water, stretching as far as the eye could see to the east and west. The crest of that underwater mountain range.

  Someone jabbed him in the back with a rifle muzzle, forcing him to continue walking.

  If the ironclad did not blow up, and if it did not get stuck on the emerging land, maybe Yanko would be able to see this new continent coming into existence from a porthole in his jail cell.

  Chapter 25

  They did not take Yanko, Lakeo, and Arayevo to the brig, not right away. Before they made it below decks, the first rock—or mountaintop—scraped at the hull of the ironclad. Half of the soldiers escorting them raced off, called away to duty stations. The other half forced Yanko and his friends to stand against a bulkhead on the main deck. The mage hunter stood with them, leaning against the wall, a hand to her stomach, blood staining her fingers. Her eyes were closed, her jaw clenched as she breathed deeply, dealing with her pain and ignoring everything around her. More soldiers than seemed necessary pointed their rifles at Yanko’s chest. He was tempted to point out that the woman—Jhali—was more dangerous than he.

  The alarm continued to wail, and ominous black smoke poured from the stacks. Someone opened a hatch, and heat flowed out, momentarily making it feel like they were back in the tropics. Shouts came up from below, from whatever engine room powered the vessel.

  Though he could feel the fear of the soldiers and knew the ship could blow up, Yanko’s gaze was drawn toward the horizon where more and more peaks and ridges poked above the water, growing upward like plants on a warm sunny day.

  The ironclad’s helmsman must have figured out that the boiler wasn’t their only problem, that the vessel might be stranded on land thousands of miles from Turgonian shores, with no way off. The ship steamed northward, following the rest of the fleet, a dozen ironclad ships pouring ribbons of black smoke into the sky from their stacks. The other ships were outdistancing this one. Yanko rubbed his face, wondering what exactly Sun Dragon had done before being swallowed by lava. He also wondered if it was horrible that he looked upon the land rising from the ocean with awe and satisfaction, instead of seeing a problem. Being stranded would be problematic, but he couldn’t help but see that as a future with more possibilities than being taken back to Turgonia.

  An alarmed squawk sounded as Kei flapped into sight and banked toward Yanko. Relieved to see the parrot, Yanko did not mind the pain that came with talons sinking into the bare flesh of his shoulder or the request for seeds that popped into his mind.

  A couple of the soldiers twitched, the barrels of their rifles shifting toward the bird. What, did they think Kei was some vile wizard’s familiar? Yanko prepared to shield himself and the parrot in case one of the men fired, but they lowered their rifles to the original target: Yanko’s chest. They did shift uneasily, glancing from Yanko to Kei and back again.

  “You made an impression on them,” Lakeo muttered.

  “I liked it better when everybody dismissed me as a harmless boy with four chin hairs,” Yanko murmured back. He had no idea if any of these Turgonians spoke his language, but they might object to open chatting.

  “Did you? That seemed to irk you.” Lakeo glanced at Arayevo, who did not respond to the conversation. She gazed toward the railing and the points of land rising from the sea all around them, the setting sun burnishing the wet earth a deep red.

  “Because in my naive youth, I didn’t realize it was better to be underestimated than overestimated.” Yanko gripped his arms, resisting the urge to stuff his hands into his armpits. Fierce wizards probably weren’t
supposed to shiver in front of their enemies, even if their robes had been stolen.

  Lakeo eyed the rifles pointed toward Yanko. “Oh, I think they’re estimating you just about right. They may be underestimating me.” She sniffed.

  “Jealous that you don’t have more firearms pointed at you?”

  “Slightly.”

  “Maybe a janitor will push a mop bucket past, and you can do nefarious things to it.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” Lakeo folded her bare arms over her chest and gazed—or glared—out past the railing. She watched a ridge of land drift past as the ironclad continued north. “I hate to say it, Yanko, but your continent is ugly.”

  “It is not.”

  Yes, it was bare of the normal grasses and trees and shrubs that an island would typically have developed over thousands of years. Instead, it claimed a lot of silt, sand, and seaweed and kelp that would have floated colorfully under the water but which had now flattened onto the terrain, where it would die, deprived of its salt-water habitat. Starfish and other sea life that hadn’t been ambulatory enough to escape when the landmass arose would suffer the same fate. Yanko regretted that, but he also suspected that the earth that was left behind would be full of nutrients and welcoming to crops eventually. That would take time, and someone would probably have to start out planting species from coastal marshes that could thrive in salty soil, but in his lifetime, he could imagine this becoming a fertile land, so long as it had the right stewards.

  “Turgonian stewards or Nurian stewards?” he wondered, glancing at the guards with the rifles. It was hard to imagine the burly soldiers as farmers.

  “It looks like the gods vomited on a sandbar,” Lakeo said.

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Arayevo said, “but I’m also hungry, so that may make my imagination less... imaginative. What are the odds that our captors will let us have our cabins back? And a snack?”

  A clang sounded, the hatch opening again.

  Dak stalked out, his face, hands, and shirt coated with black soot. Yanko barely recognized him. A white bandage wrapped around his right hand was the only clean thing on him, and even it had a few black smudges.

  Four young armed soldiers trailed after him, trading nervous glances with each other. One of them broke away and jogged over to the senior soldier holding Yanko and his friends against the bulkhead. They shared a few whispers in Turgonian.

  “What’s going on?” Yanko asked Dak, noting the displeased thundercloud storming on his face.

  “The boiler explosion has been averted,” Dak said, his voice hard and terse, as if he were speaking about their imminent sinking rather than a problem being solved.

  Another thunk came from the hull of the bow, followed by a disturbing squealing scrape. The ironclad veered onto a new course with surprising alacrity for such a large craft. Yanko allowed that they still had a problem.

  “We’re going to the brig,” Dak said, and jerked his chin toward a different hatch that led below decks.

  Yanko sighed, though he was hardly surprised. “Will they let us out if we run into a mountain and start to sink?”

  The Turgonians spoke rapidly to each other, then waved their weapons toward the hatch, making it clear that Yanko was to lead the way.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Dak grumbled.

  He walked behind Yanko, Arayevo, Lakeo, and the mage hunter. The soldiers crowded around them. Yanko thought about pointing out that he could protect himself and his friends if they decided to shoot, but there wasn’t much to be gained from reminding them that he could access the mental sciences.

  They wound through dark corridors and down two flights of stairs. More soldiers waited in the brig. One kindly opened the gate to a cell for Yanko. He, Arayevo, and Lakeo were directed into it, while Jhali was placed in the one adjacent to them. A guard with a first-aid kit went in after her, while another stayed nearby to keep a pistol aimed at her. Yanko would make sure he did not fall asleep anywhere close to the shared cell wall.

  Kei sprang from his shoulder and chose a perch on the horizontal bar that ran between the vertical ones. Yanko rubbed away blood from his skin, wishing to have his robe back for more reasons than one.

  “Dak,” Yanko said, “if we make it back out to the sea before—” A scrape against the hull sounded, the noise much louder down within the bowels of the ship. “If we make it back out to sea, can you—”

  “I can’t do anything, Yanko,” Dak said.

  “But—” Yanko broke his protest off before it had started, his mouth dangling open as Dak was pushed into a third cell, one across the way from Yanko.

  The guards spoke rapidly to each other, then shoved his gate shut with a clang. One turned a lock in the keyhole, then did the same to Yanko’s gate. Yanko barely noticed. He kept staring at Dak, trying to figure out if he was grasping the situation correctly. What could have happened? Why would his own people imprison him?

  Once the gates were locked, half of the guards left, their boots clanging on the metal decking as they strode out of the brig. The other half of the contingent, eight men, remained behind, taking up guard positions and looking like they intended to stay for a while. The other three cells were empty, so all of these people were there for the mage hunter and for Yanko. Yanko and... Dak.

  “Uhm, Dak?” Yanko asked. “Are you here to guard me again?”

  Dak glowered through the bars, and for a moment, Yanko did not think he would answer.

  Finally, he said, “I’m here because I’ve been confined to the brig for assisting a rogue Nurian criminal in killing a Nurian diplomat. Admiral Ravencrest plans to take me back to Turgonia, where my superiors can sort out my actions and figure out if I was working against my nation.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled distasteful air.

  “But I...” Yanko groped for words, all too aware that he had pleaded with Dak to help him against the mage. “Sun Dragon isn’t—wasn’t—a diplomat. How can they not see that? He wanted to strand your entire fleet there when the land rose up, and he had arranged for someone else to pick him up.” Yanko admitted that he was guessing at the latter, but Sun Dragon had implied as much.

  “I don’t suppose you have any proof of that,” Dak said.

  “No. He spoke to me in my mind.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “How can they—I mean, you’re the president’s nephew, right?” Yanko asked, ignoring the surprised looks that Lakeo and Arayevo gave him. Even the mage hunter looked over, her eyebrows slightly elevated. “They must know that you wouldn’t act dishonorably or betray your nation.”

  “As I told you, being related to someone important doesn’t mean anything in Turgonia. All that matters are one’s actions. And mine have been—” he ground his teeth, a muscle in his jaw twitching, “—called into question. If I hadn’t been integral in helping with the boiler, I might be receiving worse punishment than a stay in the brig.”

  “But Sun Dragon isn’t influencing the admiral anymore,” Yanko reasoned. “He shouldn’t be... Why wouldn’t he believe what you told him? That I’m... not a rogue Nurian criminal. I’m...” Yes, what exactly was he? Until he cleared his name, he was a Nurian criminal. “Working for Prince Zirabo.”

  “Do you still have the letter?” Dak asked.

  “I—” Yanko patted his chest, checking for the familiar feel of the letter in his tunic before remembering that he was shirtless. He almost said that it would be in his clothes, but when was the last time he had checked for it? Before swimming out of Pey Lu’s ship? What were the odds that it still remained in that pocket? Even if it did, would the Nurians truly care? “It might be in my tunic.”

  “It’s not. I was there when they dumped out your gear and searched everything.” Dak’s jaw clenched again. “They searched all of my gear too.”

  “Oh.” Yanko didn’t know what else to say. Without that letter, he was... everything that Dak had said. Everything this Fleet Admiral Ravencrest apparently believed.

  A ringing bleat sounded, s
omething different from the alarm of earlier. A call to attention? After it finished, a man spoke in Turgonian over some contraption that piped the words down, even into the lower levels.

  Cheers sounded, muted by the intervening bulkheads, but their pleasure was nonetheless decipherable.

  “What did he say?” Yanko asked.

  “We’ve cleared the landmass.” Dak glanced at the guards, then held Yanko’s gaze across the passageway. “We’re going to Turgonia.”

  Yanko gripped the bars of his cell. He could burn through the lock with his mind, and maybe he could even get past the guards without being shot, but unless he could control Admiral Ravencrest’s mind the way Sun Dragon had, how could he get off this ship and back to his people? How could he find Prince Zirabo and tell the Nurians about the new continent before the Turgonians heard about it? How could he avoid being shot as an enemy, both to his own nation and to Turgonia?

  “What would you do if you were in my position, Dak?” Yanko asked quietly, aware of the guards watching on.

  Maybe it was unfair or selfish to ask for advice from someone who might be in an even worse position than he was, thanks to the help he had offered, but Yanko couldn’t stop thinking about his mission, about the honor he had sworn to return to his family. He had to try whatever he could to find a way back home, talk to whoever might have information he could use.

  Dak backed away from the bars. “Listen, Yanko. For the sake of my career, I can’t help you anymore. This has turned into enough of a morass without further muddying the waters. I hope you will consider my debt repaid.” He inclined his head once, then turned and sat down, his back to the bars. And to Yanko.

  Yanko swallowed and rested his forehead against his own bars. He still had Arayevo and Lakeo, but he couldn’t help but feel that he had just lost a friend. Perhaps forever. To add to the insult, he’d failed in his mission, he’d possibly brought more dishonor to his family, and he was on his way to the enemy nation, thousands of miles from home.