Skykeep

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Or what?” Lil said. “That tag says you’re a warden, right? That means we’re already headed to prison. If we’re already locked up, what more can you do?”

  “If you do not behave yourselves, my men will beat you both to within an inch of your lives. The three of us are going to be spending a great deal of time together. It would behoove you to do your best to get on my good side.”

  “In my experience, wardens more or less get paid to not have a good side, but I guess I’ll try anything once,” Lil said, shuffling aside.

  “A wise decision. And you?” asked Blanc, addressing Nita.

  “Something tells me if you know anything about us, there isn’t much chance that we’ll be seeing your good side anytime soon,” Nita said, backing away. “Though it may be worth pointing out that I am a citizen of Caldera, and thus my incarceration without a trial could be considered an act of war.”

  “No, Miss Amanita Graus, there is no ‘could’ about it. This is inarguably an act of war, and you are in no uncertain terms a prisoner of war.”

  Nita’s eyes widened. “You are declaring war on Caldera?”

  “Heavens no. Caldera declared war upon us. How else are we to interpret your attack on a warehouse within our borders and your destruction of one of our most valuable dreadnought-class airships.”

  Now it was Lil’s turn to widen her eyes. “One of… wait, dreadnought class? You mean you had more than one?”

  “Oh, Miss Chastity Cooper, there will be plenty of time for you to realize the depths of your underestimations. A few steps farther back, please. Ivors, open the door.”

  The key turned and the guard, presumably Ivors, pulled the door open. Two others carefully maneuvered inside and stepped behind the girls.

  “Why, may I ask, have these women not been restrained with their arms behind their backs?” Blanc said angrily. “We have procedure for a reason.”

  “I guess your procedure didn’t account for having to transfer such supple prisoners,” Lil said, nudging Nita in the side with her elbow.

  “Warden Blanc, if perhaps I could speak to a representative of your government, I would like to offer my most profound apologies and entreat you not to consider my actions representative of Caldera as a whole,” Nita said, shuffling unsteadily out behind Lil with a guard behind her. “I do not wish to be responsible for starting a war.”

  “It is a bit late, Miss Graus,” Blanc said, turning to pace down the hall.

  “And don’t apologize to him, Nita,” Lil said as she was led out behind Blanc.

  “On the contrary. Her apology is at least a step toward the proper behavior,” Blanc said.

  “Yeah, but it’s going to sound real empty after what happens next,” Lil said.

  “And what might that—”

  Lil, anticipating his request for clarification, chose to illustrate. She leaped and brought both heels down onto the feet of the guard leading her. He growled in anger and pitched forward. With perfect timing, Lil recovered from her leap with a second one, driving the top of her head into the chin of the guard. The cramped hallway exploded with motion, five guards and their superior all shouting orders at one another. The only one who knew what she was doing was Lil. She darted around behind Blanc, who had turned to face her, and sprang once again into the air, swinging the chain of her shackles over his head. Drawing it tight across his neck, she used the leverage to kick her feet up on one side of him, knocking his pistol free. As it twirled through the air, she swung backward and forward again to drive both feet into the back of his knees. The warden crumbled to the ground on top of Lil, struggling for breath.

  From the instant Lil moved, Nita had known that at some point the gun would be coming free, as she was the only one marginally prepared for what was happening. The guard restraining her was well trained enough to keep his grip on her rather than release her in order to join the fray in front of him, but in such close quarters and such madness it didn’t take much for Nita to wrench herself free. The gun clattered to the floor, and before any of the guards could so much as kick it away, she was on it. Gun in hand she sprang backward, plowing through the confused guards until she was in the doorway of her former cell with no guards behind her. There she braced a shoulder against the doorway and used it to slide upright. The guards advanced on her, but she clicked back the hammer of the pistol and pointed it threateningly.

  “All of you, against the wall now!” she barked.

  Either the intensity of the situation had made her voice particularly intimidating or the weapon was a very impressive one, because the fug folk quickly obeyed, backing against the walls to reveal Lil and her hostage still grappling on the floor. Asst. Warden Blanc had both of his hands wrapped around the chain of her manacles, trying to pull her free, but Lil was as tenacious as a terrier when she needed to be. Her teeth were gritted tight and her eyes were wild as she kept the chain tight enough to make breathing difficult but not impossible.

  “I want you all to drop your weapons,” Nita said. “All of them, on the ground, now!”

  The batons clattered to the ground, as well as a pair of knives that one guard had evidently been hiding.

  Nita continued. “No one needs to get hurt. All I want is for us to be taken to the surface and let free. Our crew doesn’t want anything to do with your people. We’ve had our dealings, and we’ve done what we had to. The time has come for you to live your lives and us to live ours. Let us go and this is the last you’ll ever see of the Wind Breaker crew.”

  “Don’t let us go and the Wind Breaker crew is the last thing you’ll ever see,” Lil added with a grunt.

  More guards appeared at the doorway, but a sharp point of Nita’s gun and a repeat of her order convinced them to drop their weapons as well. For several seconds, no one seemed willing to act, and the only sound was Blanc trying and failing to loosen the chain from around his throat. Then the slow, deliberate click of footsteps approached from down the hall.

  “That better be someone who can give us what we want, because I’m getting pretty near fed up with this pasty-white scarecrow lying on top of me,” Lil growled, giving the chain a quick yank to make it clear any air Blanc was getting was her decision, not his.

  The footsteps drew closer, and a new figure appeared in the door. Everyone else in the hallway was stretched thin and on edge, but the man who stood framed in the doorway was as calm as a still lake. Unlike his rather more elaborately dressed associate, he was really quite plain in his wardrobe; a black suit, a black tie, a black vest, and a white shirt. He looked more like a rather well-to-do undertaker than anything else. What set him apart was his poise. He took in the hostage situation around him and slowly crossed his arms, no flicker of emotion on a face that was thin even for a fug person. His face and head were clean shaved, and despite the chemical chill to the air, there was the slight twinkle of perspiration on his brow. There was no question, even in the absence of pomp and regalia, that this man was the one above all others in the command chain. He was the one in charge.

  “Sir,” Nita said, her weapon held low but ready. “Please. All I ask is that you and your men let us go. No one needs to get hurt.”

  “Except this guy. He got on my nerves,” Lil said.

  The man in the doorway calmly looked down to the stricken assistant warden.

  In a voice like distilled reason, he spoke a single word. “Mask.”

  For a fraction of a second, no one seemed to understand. Then, at the same time, Lil and Blanc did. She tried to pull her head back and away, but the long, lanky arms of her hostage had reach to spare. He hooked a hand behind her head, pulled at a latch, and yanked her mask free. Lil grabbed a final deep breath of filtered air before it was stripped away, and pulled with all of her might on the chain, digging it into Blanc’s throat as he threw the mask out of her reach.

  “Put it back on her! Put it back on her!” Nita demanded, her hands shaking as she took aim directly at the man in the doorway.

  He didn’t show
an ounce of fear or anger and simply spoke in calm, soothing tones. “Miss Graus, your concern for your friend is admirable, but you’ll find it rather more difficult to compel someone into action at the point of a gun than it is to compel them into inaction. And your friend has been exerting herself quite vigorously. We need only delay a short while for her to run short of breath, and a short while longer for her to cease to breathe entirely.”

  Lil shuddered and convulsed, her face beet red, and finally exhaled. She drew in a breath of the horrid fumes around them and instantly began to cough and gasp in agony.

  “I understand breathing the fug is really quite painful to those from the surface, Miss Graus,” the man said, raising his voice over the agonized wheezing at his feet. “Drop your weapon and I assure you we will restore her mask immediately. I extend to you the same gracious offer you made to us. No one needs to get hurt.”

  Tears were running down the side of Lil’s head as she attempted to shape her coughs into words, but the violent, painful sounds were incomprehensible. The pressure on the chain was weakening now.

  “She doesn’t have much time left, Miss Graus.”

  Nita gritted her teeth and eased the hammer of the gun back into place, lowering the weapon entirely. The moment it was no longer in position to threaten them, the two guards nearest to her closed in, taking the gun and roughly immobilizing her. Two more guards removed Lil from the assistant warden and helped him to his feet.

  “Replace the mask,” the man in the doorway ordered.

  Though he did not seem pleased to be doing so, the nearest guard grabbed the fallen mask and strapped it back onto Lil’s face. After a few more ragged, wheezing coughs, her breathing became easier.

  “Thank you, Miss Graus. It is pleasing to know that one of you is reasonable. That will make your time here far more tolerable for us all,” he said. “I am Warden Linn. Welcome to Skykeep.”

  #

  The warden led the way through the cramped hall of the ship. It was a small but heavily locked-down vessel. Fifteen cells similar to the one that had held them took up most of the space. Like most fug vessels, it was lightly crewed, quite likely the five guards and the assistant warden were joined by no more than two additional crewmen. The nearly successful escape attempt had convinced those on board to assign two guards to each of the women, meaning that there was virtually no room to maneuver. The inconvenience, all seemed to agree, was a necessary evil if it meant keeping the prisoners in check. Eventually they made it to the gangplank and out onto the pier. The disorienting black void of the near-light-less fug was all around them. Above them was the thick purple fog that resulted when the fug met fresh air, a midday glow just barely breaking through it. That meant they were near the surface, and the pier ahead of them led upward.

  “I didn’t know there were any cities in the fug that were anywhere near the surface,” Nita said.

  “Quiet!” barked Ivors, one of the guards assigned to the Calderan.

  “Please, Ivors. The observation was not out of line. I have no quarrel with intelligent discourse. Miss Graus, your statement is quite understandable. There are, in fact, quite a few fug settlements in the central expanse of Rim that are quite near the surface, not because they are elevated, but because the layer of fug there is so thin. This, however, is not one of them.”

  “You should have shot him,” Lil wheezed, her voice finally returning.

  “Quiet!” growled one of her guards, wrenching her arm. This time there was no counter-order from Linn.

  “You would have died,” Nita said. The grip around her arm tightened.

  “So’d’ve he,” she coughed. “Fair trade, if you ask me.”

  “Really, Miss Cooper. You aren’t improving matters for yourself,” Linn said.

  The ramp reached a long, narrow platform that stretched out to either side, hugging a wooden wall with a staircase at its center. Navigating the stairs was a challenge when in leg irons, but they managed. They crossed through the thick layer of fug, spiraling up flight after flight of stairs, until they finally broke through to the surface. Neither Nita nor Lil was prepared for what they saw next.

  It was a fortress, or it may as well have been. There were towers of wooden scaffold at each corner of a plank courtyard with nearly as much square footage as half the town of Lock. A simple railing ringed the outside edge, and a larger central tower sat at the center, this one with a few large shacks and cabins at its base and a massive, stout pole at its peak. Along each edge, anchored to massive metal rings, were three spherical airship envelopes nearly as large as those that had been used to keep the dreadnought aloft. They cast enormous shadows across the courtyard. All around them, as far as the eye could see, was the roiling, wind-whipped purple surface of the fug, lapping at the edge of the wooden platform like an angry sea in slow motion.

  “What… is this?” Lil asked, awe in her voice.

  “Skykeep is a prison, Miss Cooper. Most of my fellow fug folk call it the Phylactery, for poetic reasons. You’ll note we have no walls. We do not require them. The whole of this facility is elevated nine hundred feet above the surface. The masks that have been removed from you are going to be returned to the cutter that delivered you. There are no permanent filter masks here. You will each be given mouthpieces, which can offer you no more than one continuous hour of breathing before they must be changed, and only when we deem such things necessary. The altitude of this facility is adjusted hourly to keep the top three floors above the fug, and the bottom three floors below it. The central three floors are all somewhere in between. Beneath the fug are anti-aircraft guns, each heavily fortified and directed by spotters here on the surface. At the top of each of these five towers is a sharpshooter.” He turned to Ivors. “Fetch Anthus, would you?”

  The guard paced toward the center of the platform and opened a door at the base of the tower.

  Linn continued. “Many have attempted to escape. The most popular method has been to reach one of the four anchor chains that hold us in place and attempt to climb to the surface. No one has survived such an attempt, and because our purpose is to imprison and not to execute, I would like to demonstrate for you why this is so.”

  Ivors returned, and with him he brought a creature. It was man-sized, stalking on all fours and snarling to reveal vicious teeth. The beast was large enough to have been a small bear, but it was as lanky and skeletal in build as the fug folk. Also it had the long, pointed muzzle and sharply pointed ears of a jackal, and the same sweeping tail. Short, dense fur made up its pelt, gray and dappled with black spots. It growled with a ghastly wind-through-the-gallows wheeze, and it darted its gaze back and forth with wild red eyes.

  “As air-goers you are familiar with the inspectors. They are what happens when an aye-aye is exposed to the fug and survives. And of course you are familiar with us. We are what happens when a human is exposed to the fug and survives. This is a fug hound. This is what happens when a dog is exposed to the fug and survives. Like all I’ve mentioned thus far, they are at least marginally more intelligent than their mundane brethren. They are utterly bloodthirsty and can outrun a horse and eat their weight in meat once a week, and there are a dozen of them loose on the surface where the chains are anchored. Unlike Anthus here, they are not well trained, and they are not well fed. We found training tended to take the edge from the killer instinct that serves them so well as guard dogs. Thus they are, quite simply, wild hunters. If they don’t hunt, they don’t eat, and they love to eat. Placing yourself anywhere within a mile of these creatures is… inadvisable.”

  Nita shook her head. “If… if the fug has blanketed most of the continent… is the entire surface flooded with those things? And others like them?”

  “I admire your curiosity, Miss Graus, and I’m sure that in time we will be able to discuss the details of my homeland, but for the moment we are not here to educate you. Now, Miss Cooper, your behavior has regrettably earned you a day in isolation. You will be taken there now. Miss Graus, you
brandished a weapon and threatened the lives of fug folk. This is an unacceptable offense as well, but in light of your willingness to forgo any actual violence, you will in this one case be granted leniency. And this leniency is contingent upon joining me for a short discussion.”

  “He means an interrogation,” Lil rumbled.

  “It will become an interrogation only if your behavior renders it necessary. The very nature of this place provides more than enough discomfort to make it a suitable punishment, in time, for any crime. I seldom see the need to enhance the punishment.” He glanced to Lil. “With some obvious exceptions. When your friend has been secured, my men will remove your restraints, and you are free to move about the courtyard so long as you do not attempt to approach or communicate with those in isolation. If for any reason you feel the need to misbehave, I encourage you to look to the towers, and to Anthus here. At all times you are in the sights of several rifles, and potentially on the menu of a hound. Is that understood?”

  Nita nodded once.

  “Splendid,” Linn said. “Ivors, bring Anthus to the lower level for feeding, and place Miss Cooper in one of the isolation cells.”

  “You don’t tell them nothing, Nita! You don’t tell them nothing! They have no idea what sort of devilry they signed up for when they took us…”

  “It’s going to be okay, Lil,” Nita called out. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Yeah, for us maybe,” Lil called back. “But these fuggers’ days are numbered!”

  “Undo Miss Graus’s restraints,” Linn ordered.

  One of the guards began to sift through a set of keys while Nita watched nervously as her friend was literally dragged kicking and screaming toward the central tower.

  “You aren’t going to… hurt her, are you?” Nita asked.

  “It would be entirely within our rights to do so. She assaulted my assistant warden. But no. I deplore physical violence. Isolation is a different sort of punishment. Like more conventional forms of discipline, it can, if overused, leave scars. But at least these scars aren’t the sort that show.”