by Terah Edun
Ciardis gulped but forged on, “The vessel magically tied to Maradian, The Marde. The one that can prove that man posing as Bastien isn’t who says he is.”
“How?” Vana said flatly.
Ciardis paused. “We don’t exactly know that yet.”
Vana snorted and banged a hand against the railing. She set off a dusty storm as she said, “Well, then it’s a good thing I’m here.”
Ciardis stopped eyeing with distaste the dust particles floating in the air—she really did have a regular tendency to start coughing when the air was so dirty—and turned to look at the ship that sat on a shipyard platform directly in front of them.
“I have allergies, you know,” Ciardis said.
Vana turned toward her with dead certainty in her eyes. “So this is it? This is the key to his downfall?”
Ciardis nodded. “Yes.”
Ciardis knew that Vana already knew the rest. When she and Thanar had returned from the warehouse after originally discovering the ship, Vana had found out about it at the same time she had learned that they had killed a black dragon named Balash. She had been suitably more impressed at the time that they had killed a dragon. It was only shortly after that of course that Vana had learned about the imposter emperor as well.
It had been a lot to take in and it was still a lot to take in now. But Ciardis knew that now Vana’s full attention was focused on the secret ship before them.
Vana stared at the massive ship that rose from the warehouse floor below them. “To think that it’s been hidden away here ... for what must be decades, judging by the cobwebs ... waiting. But waiting for what is the question.”
“Or whom,” proffered Ciardis weakly.
Vana didn’t answer. She just walked alongside the railing and eyed the ship below.
“Why did you bring me here?” Vana suddenly demanded.
“I told you why,” Ciardis said.
Vana laughed and shook her head. “You have a connection to the man you think is Maradian, but you have no proof. How do you think the knowledge of its existence will change that?”
A frown crossed Ciardis’s face. She opened and closed her mouth in confusion.
“Well,” she said, “it must mean something for Princess Heir Marissa to have hidden away here with those protection spells for all this time. The woman wasn’t stupid.”
Vana watched her with an impassive face.
Frustrated, Ciardis reiterated, “It means something.”
At that moment, a glow lit up the interior of the darkened warehouse. Ciardis leaned over the edge of the warehouse railing. The ship was tall enough to take up the space from the base of the building to the edge of the ceiling. She had no idea how the princess heir’s team had gotten it inside.
Ciardis had to wonder if the masts would extend once they hit the open water, but she knew basically nothing about what made a kasten ship run.
Maybe they don’t even need tall masts to hang sails from to navigate the open water, she thought in admiration. Perhaps they power themselves with something other than the wind.
But it was just a guess, and right now they had more important things to worry about. Like a bright light on a ship that sat trapped inside a building.
“What is that?” Vana asked.
“Whatever it is,” Ciardis whispered back over her shoulder at Vana, “it wasn’t there when Thanar, Raisa, and I came to see the ship last time.”
She settled back on her heels and looked at Vana with a raised eyebrow.
Vana walked over to the door they had come in, knelt down, and dusted off an object lying on the floor.
Then she grabbed it, and Ciardis was able to see coils of rope dangling from her hand.
As she surveyed the banister on the landing they stood on, Ciardis asked nervously, “What are you going to do with that?”
Vana looked over and smiled. “I’m going to find out what that is.”
Ciardis’s eyes widened. “You’re not serious.”
Vana was busy tying a tight knot on a small jut of metal on the wall near the doorway. Once she had secured it with a double layer that wrapped around the hook end of the iron protrusion that looked like it was cemented into the wall itself, she tested the strength with swift tugs of her hand.
“Good enough,” Vana said.
“For what?” Ciardis demanded as she walked over.
Then she felt the color draining from her face as she watched Vana measure out the length of the rope, eye the distance to the ship, cut about five feet off the rope’s end, and deftly tie the new end into a looped circle.
Ciardis had a bad feeling about this.
“Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,”
Vana paused to look back at Ciardis. “Fine, I won’t tell you.”
“Vana,” Ciardis said in a warning tone. She couldn’t help if it came out more as a whine.
Vana shook her head though and quickly said, “Ciardis, don’t try to stop me. I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive.”
Ciardis crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Doing what exactly?”
Vana looked at her with a calm expression. “Getting in and out of places I shouldn’t be, climbing walls and parachuting down chasms, picking locks and scaling causeways—”
“Okay, okay I get it,” Ciardis said. “I’m sorry. I was just worried. That’s a drop of at least thirty feet. If you fell, I’d be picking up pieces of broken bones from the warehouse floor.”
“I’m not going to fall,” Vana said with amusement. “The lasso is more than just rope. I’m imbuing it with magic and reinforcing it with steel will. This is going to be one of the easiest climbs I’ve done in the past six months. All right?”
Ciardis bit her lip. “Okay.”
Vana nodded and slowly looped the rope overhead in slow motion, and then faster and faster. She let loose, aiming for the bow of the ship, the lasso sailed through the air until it landed on the figurehead. With a swift tug, Vana secured her rope and then reached into her pouch and pulled out gloves.
As she slipped them on, being sure to pack each crease between her fingers tightly, Ciardis reached out and clasped her on the shoulder.
Vana let out an irritated sigh. “I’ll be fine, Ciardis Weathervane.”
Ciardis cleared her throat. “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
Vana looked over her shoulder.
Ciardis said nervously, “Think that rope can hold two people?”
Vana narrowed her eyes. Then she reached into her pouch and pulled out a second set of gloves.
“I have no doubt it can,” Vana said softly. “The question is, can you climb down a rope with just your bare hands?”
Ciardis didn’t blink an eye. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Vana snorted and turned. She put her hands on the rope and tugged, with a bit of magic streaming out of her closed fists. The rope lit up with her signature gift from end to end, and Ciardis watched the rope transform and become tighter until it was as if had been built as a connection between the wall and the ship from the moment the ship arrived. Ciardis reached up with her gloved hands and held on. The rope thrummed with magic, and it was so tightly strung now that she couldn’t bend it in any direction.
Ciardis gulped. She didn’t care what Vana said. It still looked like flimsy rope to her.
It’s all about trust, she told herself nervously. Strength and trust. I can do this. I can trust myself to do this. I can trust Vana to create a rope that won’t snap or unravel or dissipate or....
She could have gone on, but she told herself to stop. She was just making herself nervous.
Taking a deep breath, Ciardis watched Vana line up in front of her, step up on the ledge, and dive off.
Ciardis screamed. She hadn’t fallen. She’d dived.
Ciardis let go of the rope and hurried to the railing edge breathlessly. Only to see Vana already hanging on to the ship’s figurehead and climbing up and onto the
deck adroitly.
“What was that?” Ciardis shouted in an irate voice.
Vana finished climbing and shouted back at her, “That was a bungee line. You honestly thought I’d spend a half-hour climbing down that with you? Come on, just grab on and do the same.”
Ciardis wasn’t sure if she should feel more relieved or more insulted.
“How does it work?” Ciardis asked as she let out a deeply relieved sigh. “I mean, the rope is straight. It doesn’t go down. In fact, it angles up. You should never....”
Vana stared up at her, turned around, and began walking across the bow of the ship.
Ciardis stared after her and shouted, “Wait! What about me?”
Vana didn’t stop.
Cursing, Ciardis grabbed on to the rope, prayed to three different gods, climbed up the ledge, and rappelled down the flimsy rope after the assassin leaving her behind.
It only lasted seconds. It felt like hours as she fell swiftly down the line with nothing holding her up but air and magic. Her body felt at once weightless and as if her arms were on fire from supporting the full weight of muscle, bone, and mass. It felt like flying and it felt like falling to her death. One thing was sure: Ciardis never wanted to feel it ever again.
The entire time her stomach was in her throat and she couldn’t catch a breath. So when she saw herself approaching the ship’s bow and not stopping, she had to wonder if she really was going to die. Either by impalment or falling a couple dozen feet to her death. Neither sounded very pleasant.
Ciardis saw her life flash before her eyes as she tried to think of something to halt her advance on the ship’s figurehead with the wooden sword angled upward at her.
But as she drew nearer, her perception changed. It was a weird sensation. Her attunement to the magic in the rope told her she was going down at an angle to reach the ship’s bow. But with her physical eyesight she saw herself zooming across a straight line of rope.
As she reached the bow and slowed, she decided she’d had enough headaches for one day. She didn’t need to find out the mysterious physics behind the rope’s displacement of matter to get her where she was going. She would just chalk it up to another capability of an Unknown mage and move on. For her own sanity.
Ciardis stared up at the carved life-sized figurehead. She’d actually landed just below its perky breasts and upward-swinging sword. Staring at her navel, Ciardis had to wonder how she was going to let go of the rope and grab the woman’s arms without falling to her death or managing to knock herself out on the ship’s prow.
She also knew that the longer this took, the farther Vana would be away.
She wasn’t scared. But she didn’t want to be left behind either.
So with a curse and a prayer, Ciardis began swinging herself back and forth for momentum. Leaping up with all of her might, she grabbed for the figure’s upraised arm, and got it!
“I did it!” Ciardis said, panting as she scrambled to keep hold of the bulging arm muscle. “I can’t believe I did that!”
It was one of her proudest moments. The moment she had achieved something she’d never thought herself physically capable of. It almost brought tears to her eyes.
That could be the pain of my straining muscles, though, she thought with a grunt.
She was trying to pull herself up but couldn’t. Her feet couldn’t get purchase on the slippery sides of the ship, and she was doing all she could just to keep her grip around the polished forearm of the female figurine.
Ciardis felt tears in the corners of her eyes as she kept telling herself to hold on and find that footing.
Then she heard a rustle and looked up to see an outstretched hand in her face.
Vana looked down at her with a guarded expression from where she hung off the ship’s railing and said, “Grab on.”
Ciardis did so without a word of complaint.
Together they climbed onto the deck of the ship. With trembling muscles, Ciardis looked up at Vana shyly. “Thanks for coming back.”
Vana raised an eyebrow. “It was the least I could do.”
Ciardis nodded wearily, and Vana turned away. “Shall we?”
“Where to?” Ciardis asked.
“What we came to see is below decks. I saw the glow from the staircase.”
Ciardis nodded and no more was said. They began their trek across deck, directly toward the stairs that led to the cargo hold down below.
Chapter 7
As she put her hand on the stairway rail leading into the darkness below deck, Ciardis felt the ship shift for a moment. Rocking back and forth as if it were at sea and lulling on the waves. It was only a moment and could have been a sense of déjà vu from the time she had greeted the Sahalian ambassador on the deck of the imperial ship, but she didn’t think so. It had felt too real.
But she didn’t mention it to Vana.
The woman was already descending into the inky darkness of the hold below, and Ciardis, with a grimace, hurried to follow behind. She raised a hand to summon a mage fireball, anything to push the darkness back and bring in light, but as soon as she summoned the power ... a lot easier now that she could tap into her bond mates’ gifts instead of just her own ... she felt a whoosh of air and her ball of light snuffed out as quickly as if it was a lone candlewick and had been doused with rain.
That made Ciardis wary.
“Vana,” she hissed into the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. The only thing she was certain of was that she was still descending the stairs, as her body was angled toward the bottom and the rough-hewn wood underneath her right hand was still there.
“Vana,” Ciardis called out again, right before she bumped into the assassin’s back, nose first.
“What?” Vana said as she stood stock still. She didn’t turn around, as far as Ciardis could tell. In fact, she was sure Vana was turned around, because Ciardis’s hand was on her right shoulder blade and she could feel the lumpy hilts of knives underneath Vana’s cloak.
“Can you see?” asked Ciardis unsteadily ... she was trying to sound strong. She knew she was failing at it.
“No, Weathervane,” Vana said patiently, “but I can hear my voice echo off the walls. I can feel the wooden railing under my nails. I can taste the dampness of wet in the air. I can feel the air moving around me and you in an empty corridor.”
Finally Ciardis got irritated. “I didn’t ask if you were an echo-locating bat, Vana, I just asked if I was the only one blind in this corridor.”
Vana chuckled. “And I answered you ... now hold on.”
“I am holding on,” Ciardis said before a wave of something like sticky honey passed over and through her.
She reeled back. For a moment she was blind, mute, and deaf to the world. There was just the icky substance on her skin and the feel of the wooden railing clenched tightly in her right hand.
The feeling passed. The sensation of uncleanliness remained.
Gasping for breath, Ciardis asked, “What was that?”
“That,” said Vana thoughtfully, “was us passing through a force field.”
“A force what?” said Ciardis.
Vana summoned a ball of fire, and Ciardis’s jaw dropped. It didn’t look like they were on an old and damp staircase anymore. Before her the staircase transformed into polished ebony wood with maple accents. A landing faced them six steps down, with three doors on either side of the corridor. Beyond those, another staircase descended further.
Ciardis gulped. “Is this where the light is?”
Vana walked down the remaining steps. “No, these are the chambers for the prince heir’s men. Maradian’s men when he sailed. The light should be below in the hold.”
Ciardis lifted her arm and turned her flesh this way and that, expecting to see sticky residue to match the grimy feel of her body. But none appeared.
“You won’t stop feeling like you stepped in a vat of smashed blackberries until we get out of here and back up deck,” said Vana dryly.
Ciardis
’s head snapped up. “How do you know so much about this ship, Vana? And don’t tell me you don’t know anything. You made your way too quickly and surely to be a stranger to this vessel.”
Vana gave her a mocking smile. “Very good, Weathervane. You figured me out. I do have some history with this ship, and someday I might tell you, but today is not that day.”
Ciardis shook her head ruefully. “Then at least tell me what you can.”
Vana looked at her coldly and then nodded her chin at the staircase behind Ciardis. “Look behind you and tell me what you see.”
Ciardis bit her lip and obliged. She stared up from the landing at a corridor encased in darkness, as if the light of Vana’s mage ball extended to a precise point ... the base of the staircase ... and could go no further. It wasn’t a case of the light being weak ... it was as bright as a miniature sun, after all. No. It was the fact that the darkness they emerged from seemed to absorb and feed on the light the instant it touched the edge of the staircase.
“Nothing,” Ciardis said. “I see nothing.”
“Precisely,” said Vana in a satisfied tone. “Lesson number fifteen, Weathervane. Don’t go down a pitch-black corridor unless you know where you’re going and where it leads.”
Ciardis wrinkled her nose and turned back to Vana. “I was following you.”
“Lesson number sixteen,” Vana said with a soft chuckle, “recognize the feeling of a force field—the heavy air, the sticky substance, the pitch darkness—and run if you ever encounter it again.”
“You still have yet to explain what it is.”
“In simplest terms?” Ciardis gave her a look, which Vana promptly ignored. “It’s a containment field meant to preserve a place or object in a precise moment of time and space. It prevents the contained area from deteriorating.”
Ciardis looked around. “This corridor, you mean?”
Vana nodded. “And others below.”
“So it’s like a giant protection bubble,” Ciardis muttered.
“It’s more than that,” Vana said. “The parameters are set so that even the objects inside don’t age.”
Ciardis cleared her throat. “And why is this bad?”
Vana smiled. Ciardis echoed her smile with a grim look of her own. She knew that when Vana smiled, the people around her had nothing to be happy about.
