Chapter Ten: Talent Of Mine
Outside, Reedis said, “So what now?”
“Now, we find ourselves a warm meal and wait,” Ford said, nodding toward the jail.
“What?” Knox said.
“We wait,” Ford said. “And we keep a careful eye on the jail.”
“They won’t take our prisoners, sir,” Knox said, “they’ve got nowhere to take them.”
“Our thief made a mistake,” Ford said. Knox and Reedis looked confused. “He said that he was waiting.” He shrugged. “So we wait.”
“What for, sir?”
“For whatever he is waiting for,” Ford replied. Reedis gave him a dubious look. “The King will have his head this evening but our thief does not seem fearful. Clearly he expects something to aid him before that time.”
“There’s an inn just down the road,” Knox offered. “The food’s not great but it’s warm.”
Ford gestured for him to lead. “By all means, boatswain, let us feast!”
The inn proved lively. It was run by a woman who was referred to as “the madame.” The food was good but Ford suspected he’d be happier sleeping aboard his ship — and would be less likely to wake up with lice or worse.
“There’s a huge crowd here tonight,” Knox said, “more than usual.”
“Why don’t you see what is happening?” Ford suggested. Knox smiled and rose, heading off to a table at the far side of the bar. Ford followed him with his eyes and then stopped — rising precipitously from his chair.
“What?” Reedis asked from over his large, full plate, a fork poised just before his mouth.
“Stay there,” Ford said, “I just want to check on something.” He had spied a small child enter the room, an urchin. She looked like the one who’d begged for a penny.
She spotted him as he approached and tried to sidle away but he called out, reaching into his pocket, “I just wanted to pay you.”
“Sir?” the little girl said, glancing about for safety.
Ford showed her the copper penny. He pulled another from his pocket and showed it to her, too. “This other one is if you do something for me.”
The girl sidled away, suddenly more wary than before. “What?”
“I need you to go back to the jail and keep an eye on that thief,” Ford said.
“For that I’ll take a shilling,” the girl said boldly.
“Tuppence, no more,” Ford countered. She thought about it, nodded, and put her hand out. Ford’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. “I’ll pay you when you’ve got news, not before!”
“So pay me,” the girl said, with a hungry grin, “‘cuz I’ve got news!”
“Sir, did you hear?” Knox came rushing over at that moment. “The thief’s escaped!”
The girl’s face fell.
“That was your news?” Ford guessed. He passed her the two pennies. She took them but gave him a look of confusion. “The first is from before. The second is half of what you would have got if you’d done the job.”
The girl’s face twisted as she considered this, then she nodded and clasped the pennies, turning in the same moment and vanishing into the crowd.
Ford turned to Knox. “How did he escape?”
“The door was wide open,” Knox said, shrugging. “There are those who suspect magic.”
“What about a simple pick?” Ford asked. Knox allowed that possibility with a shrug of his own.
“They say there was a girl who visited not much before and they ran off together,” the urchin, who Ford had believed long gone, offered up shyly. “There’s a reward, the prince says that they killed a woman in a wyvern field.”
Ford sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out two more pennies. “Do you know where they went, by any chance?”
“Pay me first,” the girl demanded. With a heavy sigh, Ford put the pennies in her hand. She made them disappear into her thin shift, smiled at him and shook her head. Ford smiled again and she laughed, a light, airy laugh that seemed totally at odds with her situation. When she finished, Ford gave her a dark look but she just laughed again, saying, “Where does anyone go to escape?”
“Oh!” Ford said in sudden understanding. The others looked at him in surprise. “Come on, Knox, we’re going to the docks!”
#
“My feet are killing me, is it much further?” Reedis complained as they spied the masts of ships dimly visible in the fading light. He glanced upwards. “What’s that?”
“Snow,” Ford said, following his gaze and catching sight of the first flakes. “An early fall but not unexpected.”
“I’m going to freeze!” Reedis whined.
“Use one of your warming spells, then,” Ford said with little sympathy.
“You cannot imagine how difficult it would be to warm anything in this cold,” Reedis responded.
“Shh,” Ford hissed. “Listen!”
“Krea!” a voice shouted in the distance toward two people not two hundred paces from them.
“That’s the apprentice!” Knox said to Ford in surprise. His brow furrowed, “But who’s Krea?”
“Shh!” Ford said again. Knox was right, it was Angus, the surly young apprentice they met earlier. Softly, he added, “If we are quiet, we may well find out.” Ford gestured toward an overturned rowboat nearby and indicated that they should take shelter there.
A clanking in the distance, near the shout of the apprentice, alerted them to the presence of a mechanical man. Ford needed only one glance over his shoulder to determine that the mechanical was Ibb himself. Reedis saw him too and started to exclaim in surprise but Ford put a hand over his mouth warningly.
They reached the rowboat and their shadows blended with it. They listened. The light breeze brought some words toward them.
“How did you find me?” the girl, Krea, asked.
“It’s a talent of mine,” Ibb replied, trying to keep his booming voice quiet. Ford saw him wave in the direction of the apprentice. “I brought him. He needs to know what is happening.”
The breeze took the next several exchanges away from them except for a few snippets.
“Is that why you’re dressed as a boy?” the apprentice asked. Ford realized that the girl was dressed in pants.
Reedis tugged on Ford’s sleeve and Ford turned to give him an irritated look only to find that the mage was pointing into the distance. There were torches moving towards them. Many torches.
The mob had found the thief.
“Go!” Ibb bellowed, his voice carrying clearly in the night. Lower, he added, “I’ll find you!”
Three darks shapes sprinted away, leaving the looming bulk of the mechanical to stand before the mob.
“Come on!” Ford called, urging the others to their feet. He started toward the mechanical man.
“Shouldn’t we go after them?” Reedis asked, pointing at the fugitives.
“He said he’ll find them, didn’t he?” Ford said, not hiding his exasperation. Understanding dawned on the faces of the other two. “He can’t do that if the mob tears him apart!”
He rushed to Ibb’s side and raised his arms above his head and called to the approaching torches, “Stop! In the King’s name, stop! Your quarry is that way!” He pointed after the fleeing thief and the girl. The mob paused and seemed about to disregard him but he caught sight of a mounted guard. “You there! I need your horse!”
“Two of them!” Reedis shouted, pointing toward another mounted guard. “Hand them over now, in the King’s name!”
“And who are you to be using the King’s — oh! It’s you!” Sykes, the guard, said in a resigned tone.
“Us, indeed!” Ford cried. “Now get off your horses! Guard this mechanical and hold him — he knows something and I mean to learn it.”
Reluctantly the two guards relinquished their mounts. Ford an
d Reedis climbed up in their stead. Ford looked down to Knox, saying, “Look after Mr. Ibb, if you would. We’ll find you when we can.”
“Aye, sir,” Knox replied. “I’ll be sure that nothing untoward occurs.”
Ford sketched him a salute and urged his mount into a trot after the vanishing mob.
“However does he command so much loyalty?” Ibb rumbled in surprise to Knox.
“He doesn’t,” Knox replied. “His whole crew’s deserted.”
“Hmm,” Ibb rumbled in response.
#
They were too late. Ford pulled up his reins as he heard a shrill screech and looked upwards to see a brilliant white wyvern — much younger than the one which had fallen to Spite’s broadside — rise high into the air, crying in triumph and disappearing northwards into the night.
“Come on!” Ford called, urging his horse into a gallop and turning it back to the town.
“Where are we going?” Reedis cried in surprise, turning to follow him.
“To the jail!” Ford called back. “We’re going to need a crew!”
“What?”
“We’ve got to follow that wyvern or the prince will have our heads!”
With a groan of pained agreement, the purple mage followed.
Far ahead, the winter wyvern flew on into the growing snowstorm. All too quickly she was lost from sight.
Frozen Sky
Book 3
Twin Soul series
Chapter One: Half a Wyvern
“So you’re saying that you killed half a wyvern?” the King shouted from his throne to the assembled group, his eyes singling out his son, Crown Prince Nestor for particular disdain.
King Markel was the second of his line. His father, Alavor, had won the kingdom through some pact with the sea goddess Ametza. King Markel was not a man cut from the same cloth; he lived a large life of indolence tempered with a certain vicious practicality that mostly included appeasing the goddess.
He continued now, acerbically, “And, having killed only the half, you let the wyvern reform, taunt my entire kingdom and fly off — unhindered — in complete freedom?”
It was morning. Only two days before Captain Ford and his gallant crew had first flown the royal airship Spite — expressly commissioned to rid the skies of flaming dragons and wyverns. They’d been successful, having shot a golden wyvern out of the sky. After that, things did not go well.
The prince leaned toward Captain Ford to surreptitiously nudge him in the side with his elbow. Ford glanced at him and saw the prince cut his eyes toward the throne, clearly indicating: say something.
“Sire, in our defense we were woefully ignorant of the nature of wyverns and dragons,” Captain Ford said, bowing his head. “We had to exhume the female body twice to understand what had happened. And by then we only knew to look for another female. We had no understanding of the time it took for a wyvern to assimilate a new human and become reborn.”
Ford remembered how the newly-made wyvern had screeched in triumph as she had flown northwards through the blizzard of snow the night before, soon lost from his sight.
“And now I have a murderer on my hands!” the King griped, his eyes turning toward the downcast form of Angus Franck. The lad was apprenticed to the wyvern lass’ father — an aging smith — and had been promised the girl’s hand in marriage. Instead, he’d burst her heart with a hatpin — which, according to Ibb the mechanical, had been necessary to complete the transformation. Ford intended to have a good long talk with the mechanical man, now safely the newest addition to the King’s jail, as soon as he could. He considered the cold metal immortal a friend, of sorts.
“I’ll take him, sire,” Ford said, looking at the sad-faced apprentice, “I could use a good hand.”
“And many more, too!” the King snarled. “Really, Captain, what good is a ship without a crew?”
“There was some confusion over pay, sire, which I could not put to rights in time,” Ford explained.
“Well, at least with the scrapings of the jail, you won’t have that problem!” the King said.
“Indeed, sire,” Ford agreed, suppressing a shudder. “And Mr. Newman, our steam engineer, and mage Reedis have both agreed to stay on as well as my boatswain whom I will rate first mate for his loyalty.”
The King waved these concerns away with a bored hand. “What matters to me, Captain Ford, is that my royal airship be seen to pursue and destroy this menace.”
“Indeed, sire,” Ford agreed.
“So when can you leave?”
“I can depart as soon as my crew is settled aboard,” Ford said. He hesitated, adding, “If you could spare them, I would like some of your jailers as guards.”
“Afraid of getting your throat slit while you sleep?” the King murmured. Ford nodded jerkily. The King leaned forward on his throne to confess, “Mind you, Captain, some of those guards are worse than those they’re guarding.”
“I know, sire,” Captain Ford replied. “I’ve had dealings with them before.”
“Indeed?”
“When leaving my past captives in their care,” Ford said, reminding the King of his years’ of service as a privateer.
“They didn’t stay long,” the King murmured. “Mostly we ransomed them off in due course, as I recall.”
“To our great profit,” first minister Mannevy chirped up from his place just below the King.
“Haven’t made a penny on this yet,” the King said, his long grey and brown beard swaying as he looked at Mannevy.
“The plan, sire, was to ensure that we could keep our profits and please our goddess at the same time,” Mannevy reminded him.
“As you say,” the King said, waving the issue aside and turning his attention back to Captain Ford and the others. “So, again I ask you, when can you capture and destroy this beast?”
“I can set sail — I mean lift ship — a week after I get my crew, sire,” Ford said.
“A week!” the King said. He shook his head. “You have four days, Captain. From now.” The King looked over to his minister. “See to it, Mannevy.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” the first minister replied. He got up from his chair and beckoned for the rest to follow him out of the royal receiving room.
“The murderer will stay behind,” the king said as the others shuffled out.
“Sire?” Captain Ford asked, wondering if he needed to up his crew requirements by one more.
“I want to speak with him in private,” the king replied. He glanced toward the mage. “And, later, I shall want to speak with you, Sir Reedis.”
Reedis gave Ford an alarmed look but the captain merely shrugged, nodding, pointedly, toward the king.
Reedis licked his lips nervously, “As you wish, your majesty.”
The king waved them out of his chambers, leaving a very nervous Angus Franck in attendance.
#
“You may approach,” the king said to Angus Franck, gesturing with one languid hand.
Angus took a few hesitant steps towards his king, he had a chiseled jaw, black eyes, calloused hands.
“Young man,” the king said, “I wish to speak for your ears alone.”
Angus’ eyes grew wide. He walked right up to the throne. King Markel rose, he wore a grey silk robe and a white coral crown. Angus bowed in fear, head downcast. He was surprised when, a moment later, a hand tapped his shoulder. He looked up and saw that the king was standing right in front of him.
“Get up,” the king said, “I have a very special mission for you alone.”
#
The doors to the throne room opened and a wide eyed Angus Franck gestured to Reedis. “The king wants you.”
Reedis gave him a worried look but Angus gestured once more and the purple mage moved forward with a jerk.
“Good luck,” the y
oung apprentice murmured as the purple mage moved into the throne room.
#
Reedis turned at the sound of the doors closing behind him. Nervously he turned back to the throne and, clearing his throat to soothe his nerves, stepped forward.
The king was nowhere to be seen.
“Your majesty?” Reedis said tentatively, entertaining a faint hope that the apprentice was teasing him and that he wouldn’t have to face the king — the king and many potentially troubling questions, such as: “And how well do you know my wife?”
“How well do you know —” the king began from a distant corner.
Reedis jumped and squeaked in surprise. “Sire?”
“— nervous sort, are you?” the king asked, beckoning him forward. Reedis trotted over. The king was in an alcove to the side of the throne. Reedis guessed the alcove was a place where the king could rest or engage in quiet conversation. Reedis bowed when he put himself before the king.
A tall page in full court livery stood beside him either for protection or to fulfill his needs, Reedis couldn’t say. The page alarmed Reedis because his features were so obviously Sorian: the copper skin and thin, pointed goatee were practically a hallmark of the kingdom to the north.
“Sit, sit!” the King commanded.
Reedis sat.
“As I was saying,” the king said when he was satisfied that he had the purple mage’s attention, “how well do you know your magic?”
Reedis nearly cried in relief at the question. The king gave him an expectant look and Reedis quickly marshalled his thoughts.
“I have been practicing this brand of magic for many months, your majesty,” Reedis said, trying to sound calm.
“I see,” the king said. He smiled. “I’m very interested in everything to do with these airships. I believe that they could prove a great boon to our kingdom. Please tell me everything you know about them. I need assurances before I decide to commit to a fleet.”
Twin Soul Series Omnibus 1: Books 1-5 (Twin Soul Series Book Sets) Page 12
