Knight Chosen

by Tammy Salyer

  “Stop!” he managed to yell as the Knight focused on the stones and relaxed his chokehold a bit. “I know where to find another of your Scrylles!”

  For a moment, Aldinhuus’s grip grew so tight Jaemus could almost feel the walls of his throat touch, then it loosened and Aldinhuus growled in his ear, “What did you say? I warn you not to lie.”

  Helplessly, Jaemus’s eyes tracked from the louring stones to Cote’s face, then to the face of each Glisternaut nearby, all of whom he knew and had flown with for anni-cycles. He could gamble his own safety on a whim and a hope, but not theirs. Especially Cote’s. Never.

  “When you landed in the shrine,” he continued, quietly so they could not hear, “four more of your Verity stones landed with you, along with another Scrylle. Remember the bag I left behind? They’re in it. If we can make it to the Octopod and launch, we can return to Isle Stonering. If we outrun and outsmart the Skate, they’ll never find us, and you’ll have what you want.”

  “I told you not to lie.”

  One of the kinky stones broke formation and hovered a lash from Jaemus’s eye. He blurted, “Two are blue and yellow, swirling in a pattern that’s nearly watery, and two are as black as the ocean floor with strange silvery details.” How was that for proof? Surely Aldinhuus’s capacity for sense wasn’t so far gone that he’d disregard Jaemus’s precise description of the Fenestrii in the Creatress’s temple.

  “They’ve taken the Fenestros you used to power your ship. I heard your captain with my own ears. We can’t leave on it.”

  “Yes, but—” The grip on his neck tightened and he sputtered and yanked helplessly on Aldinhuus’s arm. It released a fraction. “But the original engine is intact. We can’t fly as fast or as far, not without topping off with more seawater, but we can still fly.”

  After a pause that seemed a lifetime, Aldinhuus’s arm dropped from his throat, and he was shoved from behind toward the doorway. “Lead the way to the Octopod, Himmingazian.”

  Tentatively, he paced forward. Watching Cote’s expression ripple from expectation to confusion to frustration—and potentially some relief now that he wasn’t being choked to death?—Jaemus noted his face nonetheless never lost the sharp edges of leadership. He could only hope Cote would eventually understand his reasons. His life-mate’s safety was more important to Jaemus at this point than their companionship itself. It had to be. The chance of Jaemus ever proving his theories about the capacity for the celestial stones to take them beyond the Cloud had receded to barely more than wishful thinking at this point, he realized dolefully.

  But he was, despite this setback, an expert at wishes, as well as thinking. So . . .

  They passed through the doorway and Aldinhuus pushed him once more. This might not have bothered him so much if it hadn’t been directly toward the throng of advancing Glisternauts, all aiming shelksies. If he had one wish that was greater than his simple wish to save Himmingazian, it was that people would stop pointing weapons at him. Before Aldinhuus could return the gesture, he said, “Now, hold on, Master Knight, just give me a ch—”

  But before he finished the statement, Aldinhuus had done his thing and dispersed the kinky stones—yet they weren’t sent to attack the Glisternauts. Several fell into a square pattern surrounding his and the Knight’s feet, and one flew directly centered above their heads. As if a robe were thrown over them, a pyramid of blue translucent light rose from the stones below and fell from the one above, enveloping them inside.

  Which would be great theatrics if not for the tat-tat-tat sound of shelksies being fired, a misleadingly benign sound, as if delicate seashells were being stomped on by hard, heavy boots. Jaemus closed his eyes, waiting for the sting followed by paralysis to hit him. And kept waiting.

  “Move, Bardgrim.”

  Aldinhuus slammed a palm into his back hard, forcing him forward once more before he’d had time to adjust to the realization he was still conscious. He stumbled as his eyes flew open. How could they have missed at this range?

  The troop of four Glisternauts blocking the passage fired again. This time, his eyes stayed open enough to witness sparks pop from the light envelope surrounding them as, it seemed, the shullets struck it. Struck it . . . and did not penetrate.

  “I swear my life will not be complete until I get a set of these kinky stones,” he said, awed. “How does—”

  “Move,” Aldinhuus said again, louder.

  “As you please,” he mumbled, and somehow, against the hollering of his instincts, began to walk toward the crew, one step at a time. Aldinhuus’s blue shield of light kept pace with them, but his nerves still twanged each time a shullet struck it.

  The Glisternauts, quickly recognizing their ineffectiveness, stopped firing. Without an apparent alternative, they retreated as the two men drew close enough to touch. Their confusion was obvious, but none was brave enough to actually try to reach inside the blue shield. Jaemus didn’t look behind him to see who was following, not because it wasn’t important, but because the Knight would undoubtedly use his none-to-gentle tactics to keep him moving forward. Jaemus would never be accused of being slow to learn.

  Impossibly, they reached the docking bay. It only took a few too-close-for-comfort strikes of Aldinhuus’s other kinky stones to persuade the ’Nauts guarding the Octopod to retreat. Once they were aboard and the hatch locked up tight, Jaemus started the power-up tasks to get the ship ready. “We’re about to launch, Master Knight,” he said as he settled at the Octopod’s controls and cycled the thrusters into potential. “You may want to sit. When I design things to go fast, they go fast.”

  Aldinhuus, for once, complied without question, figuring out the seat harness with relative ease, as if no stranger to flying ships. Noting this, Jaemus considered it evidence that the man was more likely to be a muddlemind than from another world. But if he was crazy, what did that make Jaemus for trusting to his schemes?

  “No time like the present to run from our troubles, right?” he said aloud, though his words were not for his passenger. Depressing the hangar door opening sequence on his control panel, he prepared for launch.

  “Jaemus, are you okay?” It was Cote, speaking to him via the wave-speaker.

  “What’s that?” Aldinhuus said, the slightest upward lilt in his question the only sign he was flustered by the voice coming from nowhere.

  Distracted that the hangar doors were not opening, he mumbled, “It’s Cote,” and tried the opening sequence again.

  “How is he speaking to us?”

  Pulling his attention from the stubbornly still-shut hangar doors beyond the craft’s view screen, he glanced at Aldinhuus. He didn’t know what a wave-speaker was? So much for his familiarity with ships as evidence of his delusions. “Through this device.” He pointed. “It transmits sound from one place to another.”

  Aldinhuus gave him a look that was equal parts incredulous and impressed. “Commoners in your realm have an adaptation of a Mentalios. Unexpected.”

  Again, that “commoner” reference. He’d ask about it later. If there was one. “Still in one piece, Cote,” he answered through the wave-speaker. “Just having a bit of trouble with the hangar bay door.”

  “You know we can’t let you leave,” Cote said shortly.

  Raising an eyebrow, he looked to Aldinhuus for guidance on what to do next.

  “Get them to release us,” the Knight said.

  “My, erm, tourist would like to go now, Cote.”

  “You know that won’t happen.”

  “Show me how to speak to him,” Aldinhuus pressed.

  Once Jaemus demonstrated the controls, Aldinhuus unstrapped his harness and stood so that he was visible to those outside the ship’s view screen. “My mercy is reaching its limits, Captain Illago. I understand you are a man of duty, as I am.” He paused for a long enough moment that Jaemus wondered if he was about to abandon this crazy scheme. “But you are also a man who is no more capable of sacrificing those he loves for his duty than any other.”r />
  Cote’s response came quickly, decisively. “You’ve already shown that you’re unwilling to forfeit your own life by hurting Jaemus or any of my crew.”

  “You are misreading the situation, Captain. I’ve shown I am not reckless, but as I said, there are limits. You don’t know anything about me, but I’m not lying when I tell you that I have already forsaken my duty. And my family is dead. What do you think I have left to stop me from pursuing the course I’m on? Do you think I’ll let your crew stand in my way?” As those words died, he turned to Jaemus. “Does this craft carry weapons?”

  Jaemus shook his head. “Himmingazians haven’t fought each other since the early days of the Glister Cloud. You’re the only one threatening violence here.” He let bitterness suffuse his words, ensuring Aldinhuus wouldn’t miss his disapproval. For all the good that would do.

  Cote didn’t respond, and the time began to draw out. Aldinhuus grew still, his gaze taking on that faraway look Jaemus had now witnessed a couple of times. It usually preceded—

  On cue, the troupe of winged dragørflies swarmed into the hangar.

  Chapter 32

  Gathered at the open bay, the Knights received nothing but a fog of grim silence in return when they sent an amplified plea to Eisa using their Mentalios lenses. Below them, starlight glanced from the crest from the occasional breaking wave in the Verring Sea. Mylla noted the colder air, their northward journey bringing them farther away from the more temperate climate of Asteryss.

  “Of all the things we’ve lost since this began, she’s the one I won’t miss, not a scratch,” said Stave.

  Stave, she’s one of us, Safran accused. With a trill, she mustered the bruhawks, who swooped from their perches and gave chase to the dragørfly scout. Hopefully Urgo and Yggo will be able to tell us where she’s going. Stepping closer to the bay’s opening, she ran her fingers along the frame of her Mentalios and concentrated on the bruhawks’ sight.

  Stave grumbled, “Never trusted her. Never will. She’s always talking about duty, but she seems blargin’ eager to turn her back on it.”

  “Don’t assume that,” said Roi. “We—”

  “Look, Roibeard, I know you and she’ve been together for a bit. But she’s not trustworthy, she’s not. She sows chaos. It’s in her breeding, her bones. Dyrrak, through and through. It’s why I never wanted her to be Stallari in the first place. Don’t even know why she’s a Knight, I don’t.”

  “That isn’t and never was your choice to make. Aldinhuus trusted her. Vaka Aster ordained her. She is next in line.”

  “She’s no kind of leader, and she just proved it.” Stave dragged his black curls behind his neck and eyed Roi. “Can’t trust a woman who kills when she don’t need to. And runs when it’s time to fight.”

  Mylla captured the disbelieving laugh about to squirm from her throat. “Eisa? Run from a fight? No way, that isn’t her.”

  Stave eyed her. “What d’you think she just did?”

  She had no response to that and moved her gaze out over the landscape, troubled.

  Safran cut in: The bruhawks are coming back.

  The silver-winged birds swooped inside the open bay door and glided to their perches. As the others waited for her report, Safran approached a rabbit pen kept on deck, grasped one before it could escape her reach, and cracked its neck. She tossed it to the birds and turned back.

  With stoic reluctance, she looked to the others. She flew too fast. They couldn’t keep up.

  “Any idea where she’s headed?” asked Stave.

  Dyrrakium.

  “Or maybe to Magdaster,” Mylla added. “She seemed to be flying northwest. Scouting it for us?”

  Thorvíl’s eyes suddenly widened. “The blargin’ Fenestros!”

  He shot out of the bay toward the sleeping berths, leaving them to the dread of their own realizations. Safran followed a moment later, and Mylla could hear the echoes throughout the ship as they tore through Eisa’s belongings in search of the celestial stone. They returned shortly.

  Launching a kick at one of the blocks that held the dragørfly ships in place, Stave cursed violently, using words few outside the seedier streets of Ivoryss would even understand. The bruhawks fluttered their wings, annoyed at the disturbance, then continued their meal. Safran said simply, Gone. The Scrylle too.

  Expletives notwithstanding, Thorvíl’s claims regarding Eisa’s character were quickly losing their mystery. Now more than ever, Mylla wanted the full story. They all seemed to know much more about her mentor and their leader than she, and it was time that changed. “I know I’m the novice in the Order,” she said, “but if I’m to contribute as I’m meant to, you have to stop hiding things from me.” Noting Thorvíl’s vexed scowl, she continued before he could interrupt. “Or omitting things, if you prefer. What did you mean by Eisa kills people she doesn’t need to? Did you mean the commoner she killed in Yor?” She glanced at Roi, not sure she should be speaking of the tale he’d told her earlier. “Her lover?”

  With a grunt of reluctant assent, Stave came clean. “Aye, Mylla. That’s what I’m talking about. That woman, and none of her companions, needed to die. I wasn’t with the Order yet when that happened, but I heard the story. She didn’t do it to protect us or the vessel, and after that, she went on a blargin’ berserker rage. Revenge is all she cared about. Not duty. You didn’t know this, did you, but it was she who pushed Dyrrakium into exile. Not because she thought they weren’t good enough to mix with the other kingdoms, but because the rest of us weren’t good enough for them. Dyrrak zealots, all of ’em. She took their Fenestros and convinced them they didn’t need to be part of this world anymore. It wasn’t worthy of them.”

  “But . . . why would she?” She couldn’t imagine doing something so pivotal, that changed the course of history in ways the realm would never even grasp. After the War of Rivening, each of the three remaining kingdoms was granted its own Fenestros, guarded and administered by a Knight guardian, and the Order itself kept the final two. The Fenestrii became a symbol of peace and neutrality, a link between all kingdoms. Any that called the others to an Armistice of the Stones would be granted it, and any open hostilities would be halted during these peace talks. If a kingdom refused, it lost not only the promise of peace but its honor. A denial of the Armistice was considered a breach of fealty to Vaka Aster, the worst, most disgraceful crime.

  Seeming to know what Mylla was pondering, Stave picked up her thread of thought. “But after the Dyrraks murdered the Arch Keeper of Yor—if you believe the common history—Eisa went back to her homeland and reclaimed their Fenestros, ensuring Dyrakkium could never again seek, or honor, neutrality. It’s what led to the Cataclysm. And now you see why I claim she’s a chaos-sower, she is.” With the sheen of fury still in his eyes, he peered around the hold as if looking for more things to kick.

  Roi spoke up. “The time was too unsettled. Eisa believed she had to do what she did to protect the vessel. The instability among the three kingdoms was becoming too dangerous. They might have united against us.”

  Stave took the brown stub of his cigar, now dead, and pitched it outside the hatch, much harder than was necessary to clear the deck. “Why do you always protect her, Mallich? She’s rogue. She didn’t consult the Knights and she broke faith. She’s just one of us. She doesn’t decide fate for all of us. And she most definitely has no place deciding the affairs of commoners, she doesn’t. Not with the kind of hate for them that she bears. She doesn’t deserve our trust or your protection, man. You must see that by now, you must.”

  The eldest Knight gazed down at him, unflinching, saying nothing.

  Stave went on, harsh words rolling like bile from his throat: “And now she’s doing it again. But what’s she doing, huh? What’s her plan, and if it isn’t her intent to create more chaos, why has she acted without the rest of us? Where is she meddling now? Where, I ask you?”

  Safran stepped up to him and placed an arm around his waist calmly, but her face mirrored th
e tension they all felt.

  “If Vaka Aster deserted us,” he finished, “it’s more than likely due to Eisa and her feeble delusions, her personal vendettas.” With a derisive bark that may have been a laugh but more closely resembled a frog choking, he added, “The only thing she’s done that does surprise me is writing off Ulfric so quickly. I always thought they were friends. Not surprising she’d betray us after turning so quickly on him, it’s not.”

  He’d said what he was thinking, and deep down, maybe it was what they were all thinking. Mylla had no response, instead looking to their de facto leader. Anyone who hadn’t spent a few hundred turns with Roi wouldn’t have been able to discern the shift in his composure, the flash in his eyes, the subtle tightening of his jaw. But Mylla knew him, and she recognized the anger he held back. As usual, he kept everything in check, drowned under water too deep for any of them to reach.

  Safran broke the lull. We cannot fight among ourselves. We are the last of Vaka Aster’s Knights.

  Her clear conviction, even though silent to the ears, cleared away some of their cloying unease and suspicion. Safran reached out to Roi and to Stave, taking his hand despite his reluctance. Mylla mimicked her, and the four stood in a close circle, only the cold wind making a sound until Stave sighed along with it, releasing the last of his temper.

  “Roi, I had to get that out, I did. But I’m done now, brother. We haven’t got a star to guide us, but we have you, we have. I’ll go along with whatever you think we should do. We all will.” He caught Safran’s and Mylla’s eyes in turn, calling upon their agreement.

  Safran nodded, and though still troubled, she looked as if she felt some relief. Mylla, less certain, gave one brief dip of her chin.

  Roi looked around at them, jaw still taut but no longer with anger. To Mylla, he seemed unaccountably sad. Dropping their hands, he walked to the edge of the hatch, saying aloud but not to them, “I understand now why Griggory refused to lead the Order.”