The Almost King

by Lucy Saxon

  ‘I think I’m going to go lie down for a bit,’ he said softly.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Drazan asked, worried. ‘You look terrible.’ Aleks managed a wry half-smile.

  ‘Thanks,’ he muttered, rubbing his eyes. ‘I’m fine, just a bit light-headed.’ He shuffled off towards his room.

  Stripping down to his underwear, he collapsed on top of the blankets on the bed, relishing the cool air on his overheated skin. Gods, he wanted to be home. This place was extraordinary, and exploring it was amazing, even though it was so hot, but he missed the Compass, and Saria most of all. Every day spent here was a day more for Anastasia to introduce her to a man she approved of, a day more for Saria to fall for someone else before Aleks had a chance to make amends.

  Eyes closing, he wished he had some sort of cold compress to put on his forehead to soothe his headache, but it really wasn’t worth getting up for. He didn’t have much time to think on it, though, falling asleep despite the pain in his skull.

  ‘Oh, Aleks . . .’ Blearily coming to consciousness, Aleks scowled at the voice, his head pounding. He cracked an eye open, seeing Zhora leaning in his doorway, a frown tugging at his brows. The clock on his desk said it was morning; how had he slept for so long? He’d missed dinner!

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, wondering why he felt both cold and hot at the same time. Surely that wasn’t possible?

  ‘You’ve got sunburn,’ Zhora told him. ‘Bad sunburn, by the looks of things.’ Aleks squinted up at him, puzzled.

  ‘What’s sunburn?’ His face itched, so he brought a hand up to scratch at his cheek, hissing at the unexpected burst of pain it caused.

  ‘That’s sunburn.’ Zhora strode into the room, pulling a small mirror from his pocket and handing it to Aleks, who sat up, groaning as the room spun around him. Holding the mirror up to his face, his eyes widened when he saw the bright pink hue of his skin. Glancing down, he saw his arms and part of his chest had suffered the same fate, and by the feel of his neck it was also just as tender. Every part of his skin that hadn’t been covered by fabric yesterday now felt like it was on fire.

  ‘Why has this happened? You’re all right,’ he murmured somewhat enviously, eyeing Zhora’s arms and face. They looked a few shades darker than usual, but tanned rather than burned.

  ‘I’ve spent time in hot places before, I’m used to it. Also, my da was Merican, and Drazan and I inherited his skin colouring. I’ll bet you’re Siberene through and through,’ Zhora presumed, folding his arms over his chest. Aleks nodded.

  ‘As far back as we can trace. What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘People who aren’t used to the sun are more likely to get bad sunburn – you have to build up a resistance to it. Gods, I’m sorry, lad. We should’ve known you’d burn – you’re as pale as snow.’ Aleks scowled, looking down at himself; where he wasn’t bright pink from the sunburn, his skin was practically transparent in its whiteness.

  ‘How do I get rid of it? I feel awful,’ he asked, wincing with every movement as he got to his feet and pulled on his sleep trousers. Just standing up made his head pound, and he thought he was going to be sick.

  ‘You look awful,’ Zhora said wryly. ‘All you can do is stay hydrated and wait for it to go away. Give it a week or so, and the burned skin will peel off and you’ll be as good as new.’

  ‘And what about the headache? I feel like I’ve been hit by a merchant ship.’

  Zhora frowned. ‘You’ve got a headache? That doesn’t sound good. Anything else? Nausea, maybe?’

  ‘Definitely nausea,’ Aleks confirmed. ‘I ache all over. I’m dizzy, I feel feverish . . . am I sick?’ he asked, panicked; had he caught some strange disease native to hot places? A wave of light-headedness overcame him, and he sat back down on the bed, biting his lip to stop himself from vomiting. ‘Zhora, what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘Sounds like sunstroke to me,’ Zhora said. ‘Gods, we should’ve known. Lie back down, lad, and I’ll get you some water.’

  He did as he was told, eyes squeezing shut as the world spun once more.

  ‘Ouch.’ The voice was Drazan’s, and Aleks tentatively opened his eyes again, seeing both brothers standing in his doorway, Zhora with a tankard in one hand. ‘Definitely looks like sunstroke. That’s you off-duty, for sure.’

  ‘It might be worth all of us staying in today,’ Zhora suggested as he passed the tankard to Aleks, helping him sit up to drink it. ‘Little sips, lad.’

  ‘But we need to find water,’ Aleks protested, once he’d quenched his thirst. ‘Now more than ever, if the heat is going to leave me feeling like this.’

  ‘We have time, Aleks.’ Zhora’s voice was firm. ‘You need to rest, and we don’t want to get sunstroke ourselves. Drazan and I can clean up the engine room today – it’ll do the girl good.’

  Aleks sighed, aware he’d lost the battle and too exhausted to argue further. ‘All right, fine. But just today. If I’m still like this tomorrow, you two need to keep going regardless. We can’t afford to waste time.’

  ‘It’s not wasting time, it’s looking out for our captain! Sunstroke isn’t something to brush off, Aleks. You could get seriously ill if it gets any worse.’

  ‘OK,’ he relented; they knew more about this than he did.

  ‘Drazan, you start breakfast while I carry on downstairs. Aleks needs salt, and lots of it, so a broth of some kind would be good,’ Zhora instructed. ‘You just get some sleep, lad.’ Aleks didn’t need to be told twice; he already felt his foggy mind drifting off, his eyes falling shut.

  By the time Zhora and Drazan stopped for an early dinner, Aleks was feeling well enough to venture out of his room and join his crewmates in the galley. He’d drunk nearly his entire bodyweight in water – despite his protests about rationing it – and downed several bowls of broth at Zhora’s instruction. It seemed to be working.

  As they ate, Zhora reported back on the state of the engine room, assuring them that now things had cooled down and he’d cleaned up a little, only three parts had needed replacing, and they were fairly small. They’d been lucky, but another large dead zone might be the end of them.

  ‘How will we get back, then?’ Aleks asked, frowning.

  ‘Well, we’ve been talking about that,’ Zhora replied, leaning back in his chair once his plate was clean. ‘Drazan and I thought it might be best to just skip the central sections near the dead zone and then head out further West, get as close to the other Stormlands as possible so there’s something to carry us out, and maybe fly up a while to see if there’s any other land around here.’

  Aleks perked up at this. ‘Sounds like a good plan to me. Can she withstand it?’ he asked, patting the wall of the ship. Flying out that far and then alongside the entire length of the Stormlands would be a long trip.

  ‘If the wind is as good as we hope it’ll be at the Stormlands, she’ll be just fine,’ Zhora said confidently. ‘A trip back to colder air should do her some good. Even just sitting here is heating things up.’

  Aleks zoned out through the rest of the conversation during dinner. ‘I think I’m going to go back to bed, if that’s all right with you,’ he declared when he was finished. ‘I’m still exhausted.’

  Zhora nodded, gently ruffling his hair. ‘Take some water with you, lad. The more you drink, the better your skin will get.’

  ‘Sleep well, Aleks. I’m sorry we didn’t think about sunstroke yesterday,’ Drazan added, but Aleks waved him off.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he insisted, smiling. He opened his mouth to say goodnight but was drowned out by loud noises from outside the ship. All three of them froze. It sounded like shouting.

  31

  Aleks looked up in alarm, meeting the equally panicked gazes of his crewmates. ‘That’s a weird-sounding animal,’ Drazan said with a weak chuckle. The noise continued, growing louder.

  ‘That’s no animal,’ Zhora replied, a grim look on his face. They could hear the shouting more clear
ly now; whatever was out there was drawing closer. It sounded like words; not words that Aleks recognised by any means, but words nonetheless.

  ‘Do we go out there?’ he asked tentatively, looking to Zhora, who scratched at his stubbled chin.

  ‘Sounds like we’re going to have to. Grab your guns – we have no idea what it is.’ His face betrayed the lie; they knew exactly what was out there, they just didn’t believe it.

  Ducking back to his room, Aleks shrugged on a loose shirt, ignoring the pain it caused, and dug through his satchel for his gun. The adrenalin in his system kept the worst of his symptoms at bay, but he still felt like he’d been run over by an entire stampede of horses. Meeting Drazan and Zhora back in the narrow hallway, he found the brothers equally armed. Zhora was preparing to climb out of the open trap. The shouting was deafening, and as Aleks made his way up on deck, he couldn’t believe his eyes. They were surrounded.

  The people of the land beyond the Stormlands were darkly tanned, dressed in loose shorts and very little else, their skin gleaming in the sunlight. Even the women, to Aleks’s embarrassment, wore nothing but shorts and sandals, their chests freely exposed. Some wore their frizzy black hair loose, others in tight braids, and all of them were staring at the three Siberene men with wide eyes. Every single person seemed to be holding some sort of weapon.

  ‘We are peaceful!’ Zhora exclaimed, holding his hands up in the universal sign of peace. The people didn’t seem to recognise the guns tucked in their belts, or they probably would have contested that statement.

  ‘Yes, we don’t mean you any harm,’ Aleks piped up nervously. Their gazes were blank; of course, there was no reason for any of them to speak Siberene. That was going to make things difficult.

  The crowd facing them began to part, everyone stepping aside for a young, muscular woman with bright-coloured fabrics draped around her waist in a sort of skirt, her braided hair threaded with wooden beads. Aleks averted his eyes from her chest on instinct, feeling his already pink cheeks flush brighter. The woman looked up at them, her eyes a vivid amber colour. ‘Halt,’ she said slowly. Aleks gasped; she had just spoken Siberene!

  ‘Do you . . . understand us?’ he asked tentatively, flinching as the woman’s intense gaze focused on him. She nodded once, her posture regal.

  ‘Yes, but slow. Old tongue,’ she answered. ‘Grandfather tongue.’

  ‘Grandfather?’ Drazan asked, speaking for the first time. ‘You mean, your grandfather spoke like us? Our language?’ She nodded again, and Aleks didn’t think it was possible to be any more stunned than he was.

  ‘A ship got through,’ he breathed. One day, many decades ago, a ship had made it through the Stormlands. He felt an irrational spike of anger – they weren’t the first ones after all – but pushed it aside. Clearly whoever had come through before hadn’t done so with their ship in one piece. He couldn’t imagine anyone willingly staying in such a hot wasteland, especially someone from Siberene. They must have been stranded.

  ‘Come,’ the woman ordered, her tone sharp. ‘Follow.’ Aleks opened his mouth to protest, but Zhora silenced him with a look, watching the crowd of people step back far enough to let the three climb down the rigging net. Aleks was unnerved by the number of people staring at him. He could hear them murmuring in their strange language; now that he listened more carefully it sounded both familiar and foreign to him, like it had once upon a time been Siberene but had changed and evolved over the years. How long ago had the ship landed, for the language to have changed so much?

  ‘Follow,’ the woman said again, turning towards the forest. Two young men with biceps the size of Aleks’s head flanked the woman, glaring at the three foreigners. Was the woman their queen? She certainly seemed important, the way everyone was deferring to her.

  As they walked through the forest the woman turned to them, curiosity in her eyes. ‘You came in wooden box?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a ship,’ Aleks explained. ‘A flying machine.’

  ‘Ship,’ the woman repeated, sounding out the word. ‘Flying. Like bird?’

  ‘Yes,’ Aleks confirmed, smiling faintly. ‘We flew in our ship, from the other side of the storms.’ At that, the woman gasped aloud.

  ‘Other side?’ she breathed in astonishment. ‘Goddess Land?’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right!’ Drazan said, enthusiasm growing. ‘We come from the Goddess Land, beyond the storms. You know it?’ Glancing away from the woman for a brief moment, Aleks almost stumbled in his shock. They had reached what seemed to be a village, with small wooden huts dotting the grass. He looked up, amazed to see more huts built in the trees, with bridges and ladders of vines connecting them. It was ingenious.

  ‘Legend,’ the woman explained, ‘says many-great-grandfather was from Goddess Land. Came with wife and friends, got stuck.’

  ‘How many years ago?’ Zhora asked. The woman shrugged helplessly.

  ‘Many many years,’ she replied. ‘I am fourteenth captain. Many-great-grandfather was first captain.’ Aleks let out a long breath; fourteen generations. It had to have been a long, long time ago that the ship came out here. How on Tellus had they managed that?

  When they stopped in what Aleks assumed was the centre of the village, the crowd seemed to grow impatient, calling out to their captain. As she replied, more people emerged from the wooden huts; half-naked children were among them, listening attentively. When she was finished she turned back to the crew, her eyes landing on Aleks. He squared his shoulders, offering her a smile, heart racing. ‘My name is Aleks.’

  ‘Kara,’ she replied, pointing to herself. ‘Captain.’

  ‘This is Zhora, and Drazan,’ Aleks introduced them slowly, pointing to each man in turn. ‘I am captain,’ he added, pointing back to himself. Kara seemed to brighten at that, taking a step closer to him.

  ‘Well met, captain. Sit,’ she added, gesturing to several long wooden benches around what seemed to be a fire pit, though there was no fire. Aleks supposed they didn’t need one during the day. He, Zhora and Drazan obligingly sat on a bench, and Kara sat opposite them, still flanked by her hulking bodyguards. The crowd moved with them, gathering in a circle around the benches, and the hair on the back of Aleks’s neck stood on end. ‘You flew from Goddess Land,’ Kara declared, her gaze meeting his. ‘Explain, how?’

  Taking a deep breath, Aleks explained their journey, Zhora and Drazan occasionally chipping in. He tried to speak slowly and simply, and to ignore the dozens of people hanging on to his every word, despite not fully understanding them. When he was finished he paused. ‘Could you tell me how you came here? How your many-great-grandfather came from the Goddess Land?’

  ‘No one knows,’ Kara replied sadly. ‘Used to know, many captains ago. Not any more. Long, long time ago. We move on.’ Aleks held back a sigh of frustration; of course, if it had been fourteen generations, the story probably hadn’t survived in any reliable form. The same way the story of the First Men changed depending on where you learned it. ‘We thought it myth, until you.’

  ‘No, there is definitely a world outside the storms,’ Zhora assured her. ‘Thousands and thousands of people, six countries, and plenty more flying machines.’ Kara gasped, reeling back in shock.

  ‘Thousands and thousands?’ she repeated, as if such a number were absurd. Aleks smiled slightly.

  ‘Millions,’ he told her, not sure if the word would mean anything. In a society this small, what need would they have to count so high?

  ‘More fly here from Goddess Land?’ Kara asked suddenly, alarmed, and Aleks hastened to placate her.

  ‘No, no, we come alone. Our people think it impossible to travel through storms.’

  ‘But you flew,’ she said reproachfully, making him grin.

  ‘We are unusual.’ His gaze softened. ‘No one else is coming. I swear.’ Kara didn’t look convinced, but she nodded, relaxing a little.

  ‘Tell me of the Goddess Land,’ she half requested, half ordered. Aleks let Zhora do most of the talking
, the eldest of their trio having seen more of the world than him and Drazan combined. Trying to keep the vocabulary simple, he told her first of Siberene, and then a little of the other countries, explaining how they travelled and traded and fought, and of how cold Siberene was in comparison to her homeland. She was enraptured, though many of her people grew bored and wandered off when it became clear nothing interesting was going to happen.

  Aleks couldn’t have said how long they sat there talking to the strange woman. Long enough that when she stood abruptly, he realised he had completely forgotten the fact that she was shirtless. ‘Full dark come soon,’ she declared. ‘You must return to flying machine. Forest full of danger in the dark.’

  ‘Can we come back tomorrow?’ Drazan asked. Aleks had to admit, he too was curious to see how the people lived so primitively. But at the same time they set him on edge, and he didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary.

  Aleks stood, offering Kara a nod, worried he’d fall over if he tried to bow. ‘It has been nice talking to you,’ he told her, making her smile, and she bowed slightly clumsily in return.

  ‘And nice talking to you,’ she replied, offering the same gesture to Drazan and Zhora. She called out in her own language and two young men came running up. Kara gave a hurried command, and they saluted before turning to the three foreigners. ‘Go with boys, they will return you to flying machine.’

  That seemed to be the end of their meeting, as Kara left with her ever present guards, immediately being swept into conversation with some of the elder members of the community. It seemed like everyone wanted to hear about the mysterious visitors. Their two escorts jerked their heads in a clear gesture for them to follow, then set off into the forest. With one glance back at the strange village, Aleks took off after them, his crewmates at his side.

  * * *

  The three men didn’t speak until they were safely back in their ship with the trap closed, their two escorts having retreated back to the forest. ‘Well,’ Drazan breathed, ‘that was unexpected.’