by C. A. Bryers
“Then you gotta go to them!” he blurted out in a hushed voice, simultaneously swatting a nagofly from the back of his neck.
“No, I’ll skip that date, thanks all the same. All the Majdi Order wants to do is throw me into some hole because of these ’thram Eyes that are trying to kill me.” He drew in a deep breath, his skin feeling suddenly clammy. Talking about it only served to make his rapid deterioration feel all the more real. “Enough about that. Let’s talk more about your house or the weather or if you have a pet that does something weird.”
Dao slapped at another bug biting his arm. “I’m getting eaten out here, brother. I don’t know what to say. I want you to get help, so maybe you should pray a bit. You know…ask some of your family that’s left us for some guidance. Just talking to them can put that fear away, trust me. And who knows? Maybe the Majdi do want to help.”
“They haven’t helped you much. Sure, they pardoned you and the crew, but they don’t trust you. They’ve got the Watch—”
“Salla, man, I love you as much as my own sister, but you’ve got to realize that maybe I deserve this, you know? I’ve come to terms with the fact we did some bad things out on that water, brother. We tried our best not to hurt anybody, but we stole as much as we could get our hands on, and you know it.” Dao smacked his shoulder and looked at the unidentifiable remains of some squashed bug on his palm. “I’m not saying you deserve what’s happening to you or anything, but maybe what we did is something you have to atone for, you know? Sounds like you did a lot already for the part we played in kidnapping the Gran Senji and all, but maybe you have some more to do. I know I’m not done yet. Don’t know if I’ll ever be done.”
Salla rubbed at his face. “I don’t know what more there is I can do. I just know I can’t let the Majdi or their brown boys in the Watch find me.”
“Wish I could help you, man, but we’re flying out first thing in the morning. Got one of those fancy ‘Banquet in the Clouds’ things to serve.”
Salla’s eyes lit up. “Flying out, are you? That…is actually perfect, Dao. When do we leave?”
3
The sun was just breaking over the horizon as Salla, Dao and his wife jostled alongside two dozen other occupants of the packed massporter. The all-terrain-wheeled open-canopied hauler picked up speed as it departed the sandy streets of Del Topal’s main residential district before merging onto the paved road that led to the city’s skyport. The ride was considerably smoother now and less dusty, but that did not necessarily make it a more comfortable ride.
Across the aisle, his knees almost touching hers, Dao’s wife, Marnela, looked as if she had just swallowed a bite of some bitter fruit. When Dao had first introduced them, Salla had found Marnela to be pretty as well as pleasant and hospitable—no small feat, considering his unexpected late-night appearance had roused her from bed.
But once it came time for Dao to explain that Salla was not only a scrapper, but the captain during Dao’s time on the Mayla Rose, her demeanor had changed. Her arms had been quick to fold across her ample frame, and her amiable, welcoming smile had vanished like a streetlamp going dark. After that damning fact had come to light, it didn’t take long for Marnela to pull her husband back into the house, leaving the door to shut with a deafening crack behind them. Then came the shouting, a back-and-forth verbal barrage that lasted so long Salla considered lying down in the sand to try and sleep.
From that moment forward, Marnela looked at Salla exactly as she did now—full lips pursed in dissatisfaction, plump, velvety brown cheeks mirthless, and dark eyes brimming with the threat of hostility now that judgment had been passed. To say she made Salla uncomfortable was a vast understatement.
Salla thought of something then. “Where is this trip taking us?”
Marnela’s scowl tightened.
“It was a late booking, so could be anywhere, you know? Heard it was full of stuffy lawmakers and dignitaries.” Dao touched his wife’s hand, but the gesture was rebuked with a frosty look cast in the opposite direction. “Come on, sweet sauce, you can’t stay mad at me forever.”
Salla winced upon hearing the pet name, but the flat stare Dao shot back silenced any clever quip that might have followed.
“I can’t be mad forever. Think so?” The declaration was followed by long moments of tense silence until Marnela finally faced Dao again. “I told you anyone from that Rose ship is trouble. This man here is trouble. I can’t believe I let you talk me into allowing him to crew on my ship—”
“Your ship?” Dao said, gaping.
“That’s my business we’re running in whatever airship galley we set up in. So as far as I’m concerned, yes, it’s my ship, Dao.” Her eyes shot to Salla next, daring him to talk back to her. “And as for you, tough man scrapper, let me explain something. If you so much as think of pretending you’re the captain on my ship, I will pick you up by your nethers and fling you out the nearest window. Now, don’t mistake me, I am a pleasant woman and my husband can attest to that ten times over if you’d like. I love him, but that does not mean I have to love where he came from and I do not have to love it when any dirty scrapper scags like you come sauntering back into his life.”
Salla smiled. “You do seem very warm.”
Now it was Dao’s turn to glare.
None of the three spoke another word for the rest of the trip as the speeding massporter charged toward its destination. Situated at the far edge of town, Del Topal’s skyport was among the smaller of those Salla had seen. There was only one landing strip, four vertical takeoff pads, and a broad, squat building the color of sand serving as its center of operations.
Passing through the gateway in the fencing that surrounded the skyport, the massporter at last began to slow and its brakes to whine as it approached the nearest landing pad. On it was parked an airship in the midst of a postflight cleaning. Manned mobile washing vehicles, mounted with spray hoses and pressure jets, circled the craft.
As he climbed the three steps leading up to the rim of the raised landing pad behind Dao and Marnela, Salla tried to think of the last time he’d actually flown in a conventional airship, rather than taking them out of the sky in order to abscond with whatever valuable cargo might be aboard. However long it had been, it certainly wasn’t in a ship as impressive as this one. By his estimate, it appeared to be almost five hundred feet long, and sixty feet in height from the belly to the open-air deck on top. Four giant propellers on either side provided the main source of lift and stability for the behemoth, augmented by support props above and below. The airship was painted a speckled gray color, with stylized silver embossments that weaved and wrapped about the body from bow to stern.
“You coming or not, scrapper? If you move as slow as you are now in my galley, that’s another thing that’ll get you tossed,” Marnela warned, giving him no second glance after that.
Dao walked a few steps ahead as a natural buffer between his wife and Salla. “See, man? The straight life isn’t all that bad. Get to travel in style, at least. Not knocking the Rose, but that girl was a beat-up kind of ugly compared to this thing, you know?”
Salla’s eyes remained on the airship. “What’s she called?”
“The Veslyn. Company that hired us, this is the best ship in their fleet.” He sidled a little closer to Salla. “She’s the kind of ship we’d have taken a nice shine to back in the day, right?”
“Curiosity would’ve gotten the better of me, I’ll tell you that.” He nodded with a smirk. “Don’t think I would’ve been able to sleep at night if we didn’t bring her to the water and at least have a peek in her hold.”
As soon as the threesome boarded, Marnela led them to the ship’s galley, immediately setting to work as she dispensed instructions to Dao and Salla.
“Dao, you’re with me doing prep. Salla, please see to the dining room, and make sure it’s clean and in order. Every table should have fresh flowers in the affixed vases. If there aren’t any, use the wall comm to contact the bridge to h
ave some brought aboard before we depart. Thank you.”
Salla backed out of the galley, unsure of what to say in response, but certain enough that if he didn’t do exactly as ordered, Marnela’s sudden outpouring of professionalism toward him would be short-lived.
Two hours later, the Veslyn was making a slow, steady climb into the air as the city of Del Topal shrank beneath it. It was a smooth ascent, so much so that, occasional ear-popping aside, Salla eventually forgot he was in the air at all. With the last of the prep work done, Marnela ushered Salla and Dao off to the crew cabin to change into their server uniforms.
“So hiding yourself in an airship is a good way to duck the Watch for a few days, sure,” Dao said as he buttoned the front of his sea-green serving jacket, “but we eventually land, and sometimes it’s a good few days between jobs, you know?”
Salla nodded, pulling on a pair of freshly polished shoes. Like his serving jacket, the shoes were about two sizes too large.
“So what’s your plan? You know me, Sall, I think it’d be fun to kick around with you for as long as you need, but I don’t think this is gonna float for very long with Marnela. She’s taken a pretty healthy disliking to you.” He bent to put his shoes on as well. “Not your fault, but she had one stipulation to us getting married, right? My past stays where it is. Like a pretty lady on the street, I try not to even look back.”
Salla was about to respond when several stiff knocks sounded on the door.
“Serving time, gentlemen. The two of you are out that door in ten seconds, correct?”
Salla gave a wry grin. “Warm and patient, she is.”
“She’s a good woman, Sall. She’s got stress enough making this business of hers happen, and my insisting on giving you a hand put an extra stack of worry on her mind. How about you give her a little leeway?” He laughed, but a smile did not accompany it. “I’m not asking for the twenty miles of slack you gave Kitayne, but just a little.”
Salla responded with a flat stare, but it went unnoticed as Dao was already out the door. With a sigh, he fetched the second tray of seasoned falofish bites and followed his big friend’s lead. Navigating the two turns in the short red-carpeted hallway, he walked into the broad dining area, hoping he wouldn’t lose a shoe as he made his rounds from table to table.
As soon as Salla took two steps toward his first assembly of guests, it felt as though his body froze all the way down to the marrow of his bones. He couldn’t breathe; he could only feel the metal tray become slick atop his hand as his palm began to sweat. Of the forty or so in attendance either seated or standing throughout the room, it appeared that over half belonged to the Majdi Order. A handful of them—protectors, most likely—wore more conservatively styled versions of the traditional Majdi robes he’d seen them wear on the islacast. The rest blended in with the other dignitaries aboard, identifiable only by the insignia of the Order emblazoned upon their breast.
A dozen feet away, Dao’s expression was rigid, at once communicating his understanding of the unexpected situation and urging him to get to work regardless. He feigned a laugh then at a joke told at a table nearby as he presented the platter of delights his wife had prepared.
“Excuse me, mate?”
The sharply accented voice brought Salla about with a start, and he tensed as he watched the falofish bites migrate in a sudden rush to the edge of his tray. He steadied himself before the appetizers all slid over the precipice and rearranged them with anxious, racing fingers. Only when he was finished did he glance up to see who had spoken.
It was a tall man in a charcoal suit, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard that extended from his chin in a short point. He plucked one of the falofish bites from Salla’s tray, popping it into his mouth as he surveyed the room.
“First day on the job? Or let me guess, being up in the air isn’t your thing. Looks like it, anyway.” He finished chewing and sighed. “Relax. I used to do what you’re doing, just a hundred or so feet lower in altitude. No different.”
Salla nodded, remembering to be formal to the utmost degree as Marnela had instructed. “Yes sir.”
The man snatched another appetizer from Salla’s tray. “Well, shouldn’t keep you. But before you go, I have a request. See, a nervous fellow like you makes me feel like I have to watch you, so do me a favor—loosen up and breathe a bit, mate.”
The nod he gave upon parting was almost imperceptible. Moving to the nearest table, Salla extended his tray to the elderly diners assembled there, only to find a handful of them were already holding falofish bites.
“Apologies,” he said under his breath, looking around the room for a table Dao hadn’t yet served. Spotting a table in the opposite direction his friend was heading, Salla could feel the small, deepset eyes of the bearded man watching him. He kept busy regardless, emptying his tray one piece at a time until only crumbs remained.
Dao was just turning into the hallway leading back to the galley, and Salla hastened to follow. Trying to use only his peripheral vision, Salla kept an eye out for the charcoal suit and the sharp point of a beard to identify the man who had spoken to him earlier. He belonged to some sort of security detail, no doubt. Salla caught a glimpse of him halfway across the room with another falofish bite pinched between thumb and forefinger, his attention thankfully directed elsewhere. With a sigh, Salla stepped into the hallway. A moment later, a powerful hand snatched him by the arm.
“You gotta know I had no idea, right?”
Salla’s chest deflated in relief when he saw Dao’s face. “My luck hasn’t been particularly good since…ever.”
“Your luck’s holding fine—it’ll be fine, man. Trust me. Those Majdi out there? Old, you know? Look at it this way, Marnela’s father visited a couple weeks ago. It was the ‘old man meeting the guy his daughter settled for’ thing, right? Hates Shozoans, or so Marnela tells me, but that dusty old stack of skin and bones sat four feet from me, cackling at my dirty jokes for two hours.” The look on Dao’s face changed when it seemed he realized he wasn’t cheering Salla up. “What I’m trying to say is, most of those guys out there couldn’t find the latrine on this thing if they were sitting in it. The last thing they’re gonna do is sense someone onboard with an obscure power from some ancient artifacts that practically no Majdi’s ever even heard of, right?”
Salla had to admit that Dao had a point. But he wasn’t worried about the majority of the diners out there, even if many happened to be Majdi.
“There was somebody out there, bumped into him right after we went out. Security of some sort, probably, but he wasn’t some bundle of dried old sticks wondering if he’s leaking in the latrine or in the clothes cupboard.”
Dao’s eyes darted uneasily to the end of the hallway, toward the galley. “Marnela’s gonna be wondering why we’re not back. Just—just don’t jump to any conclusions, Sall. The fleet hires security all the time. Doesn’t mean he’s a Majdi at all, and no reason to think he’s got it in for you. This paranoia of yours has got me worried, man.”
“Really? And here I was having so much fun with it. I absolutely love wondering if there’s a Majdi around every corner. Is that girl watching balistocan on the islacast a Majdi? Is that sandwich on her plate a Majdi?” He rubbed at his forehead with a weary groan. “Sorry, sorry. Strung out, wishing I could just know if—”
Dao was suddenly looking at him as if Salla’s head had just detached from his neck and started doing flips. “What was that, brother?”
Salla blinked. “What was what?”
“You seriously don’t know?” His brows were knitted with concern. “It was—it was like your brain went somewhere else and came back a second later with a…um…well, with a pretty disturbing amount of information.”
4
“Dao, I need you in here, please,” Marnela called from just around the bend of the hallway.
The big Shozoan continued to stare in bewilderment at Salla. He looked almost afraid, although what he was afraid of remained unclear. Was i
t witnessing Salla’s otherworldly power sparking to life from out of nowhere, or was it the reprisal that would be coming his way should he persist in ignoring his wife’s command?
“What did I say?” asked Salla, his first impulse being that somehow, after months of dormancy since Tempusalist, the Eyes of the One had at last shown him a truth he sought.
Dao’s eyes flicked toward the galley, looking anxious. “You said that man out there was a Majdi. His name was Adreek…um, Ooslisslow, I think. You said he’s searching the ship for you now because he senses an…an inordinate amount of fear from you.” He shook his head with an expression of mild awe. “Those aren’t my words, man. You know I don’t talk like that.”
Salla cursed under his breath. “I’ve got to get off this ship.”
“You’ve been running for the past six years.”
The voice was a whisper in his ear, but there was nobody in the hallway apart from Dao and himself. Those words had been spoken by Natke shortly after their return to the caves in the Kanejungdara, before Salla had claimed the power of the Eyes of the One. But the voice was no mere memory recalled from the ether. It was as if she were here with him, reminding him that running would only bring him right back to where he started.
Wonderful. Pretty sure the Eyes are trying to kill me, and now I get to go insane too. He gave a rough shake of his head in an effort to chase away the lingering presence he felt of Natke Orino.
“Dao!” Marnela’s professional tone was gone this time.
Dao winced. “Come on, brother. You’re bringing out a side of my wife that’s making parts of my body do the scared turtle act. The Majdi, whatever’s going on with your head—that can wait. Marnela? She’s not gonna, you know?”
Though he couldn’t quite agree with Dao’s ranking of priorities in those matters, Salla followed Dao back into the galley. Marnela’s mouth was a tight, impatient line, her eyes half-lidded as they seemed to drill into him the instant he rounded the corner.
