by Clayton Wood
“Is there anyone on deck?” Kyle asked.
“No,” Ariana answered. “There's a lookout on the mast though,” she added, pointing to the huge wooden beam that the main sail came from. “Try bringing us along the side of the boat,” she added. “I want to look in the porthole windows.”
“Got it,” Kyle replied. He accelerated forward and to the right, until he'd brought them alongside the right side of the ship. It was four stories tall from the top of the waves, with three rows of round windows extending along its length. He slowed down, passing by them one-by-one. Ariana peered into each, until Kyle had nearly reached the front of the ship. Tall waves rose from where the prow of the ship cut through the water, and Kyle rose upward to give them wide berth.
“Can you circle back to the left side?” Ariana requested. Kyle nodded, zooming forward a few dozen feet, then circling carefully around the front of the ship. It took all of his concentration to maintain the same speed as the ship while circling around it, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they'd made it to the other side. He slowed down slightly, allowing the ship to pass by as Ariana again scanned the rows of portholes.
“Okay,” Ariana stated as they passed the last porthole. “I watched the sailors on the other ship earlier today, so I think I know how to get to the rooms below deck. The cargo hold should be somewhere around there.”
“Where should we land?”
“There,” she answered, pointing at the back of the boat. Above the deck, there was a two-story building of sorts. Kyle knew that it had a name, but he had no idea what that was. There was a door on the first story at the very rear of the ship. He flew them toward it until their feet were hovering over the wooden deck below, then lowered them carefully onto the deck, their feet barely making a sound as they touched down. Kyle walked up to the door, then paused, glancing at Ariana. She nodded once, and Kyle twisted the knob, then pushed it inward. A dark, narrow hallway greeted them, lit by a single lantern. A real lantern, Kyle noted, not the typical magical lanterns found throughout the Tower. Its flickering flames cast stark, shifting shadows that stretched down the hallway.
Ariana tapped Kyle's shoulder, then stepped in front of him, treading silently down the hall. Kyle followed close behind, then nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a loud creak behind him. He spun about, his pulse pounding in his ears, but the hallway was empty. He realized that the entire boat was creaking as it rose and fell with the ocean's waves.
He felt a tap on his shoulder again, and turned around to see Ariana staring at him. He nodded, then followed her down the hallway again, until they came to a set of doors on the left. Ariana paused, putting her ear to one of the doors, then to the other. She nodded once, then opened the second door, motioning for him to follow. There was a cramped stairwell beyond, with stairs leading up and down. Ariana took the stairs downward into the belly of the ship. Again these were meagerly lit with oil lanterns; Kyle wondered why, seeing as how magic lanterns were so much better. They descended one story, then another, until they came to a door at the bottom. Ariana paused before it, then opened it up.
Kyle peered over Ariana's shoulder, seeing a much wider hallway beyond; it was more than wide enough to fit three cars side-by-side. Ariana led him down this, toward a set of double-doors at the rear wall. She stopped before the doors, grabbing the handles and pulling gently. The doors didn't budge.
“Locked,” Ariana mouthed silently.
She leaned into the doors, peering at the inch or so gap between them. Then she closed her eyes, and a faint blue light appeared on her forehead. She grabbed the handles again, and pulled...and they swung open. Beyond was a massive, two-story room. Stacks of crates and barrels lined the walls, with pallets filled with cargo stacked nearly to the ceiling. Dust swirled in the gentle light cast by the lanterns on the walls, and Kyle stifled a sudden urge to sneeze. This, he realized, must be the ship's cargo hold.
They moved forward into the cargo hold, closing the double doors behind them. Ariana wove deftly between the veritable walls of barrels and pallets, Kyle following close behind. She stopped suddenly, and pointed up at a stack of crates that nearly went all the way up to the bare wooden beams of the ceiling two stories above. She pointed to Kyle's gravity boots, then again pointed at the crates. Kyle nodded, turning his back to her, and she climbed on. He activated his boots, floating gently upward between the stacks of crates, until their heads were only a foot or two from the ceiling. Ariana pointed to the top of the crate stack, which was roughly ten feet square. Kyle nodded, bringing them over it, then dropping them gently atop it. She got off his back, forced to hunch over a little so that she wouldn't hit her head on the ceiling. She knelt down, dropping both backpacks onto the crates, then opened one of them, pulling out something wrapped in wax paper. She unfolded this, revealing a few pieces of duck.
“Here,” she whispered, handing it to him. He grabbed it, feeling his stomach grumble. Using magic always seemed to give him a heck of an appetite; Ariana had no doubt heard his complaining gut with her amazing senses.
“Thanks,” he whispered back. He chowed down, feeling the ship sway slightly beneath him. The wooden beams of the cargo hold creaked with the motion. “How many meals do we have?” he asked.
“There's only a few meals left,” Ariana admitted. She grabbed a cup from the pack, magically filling it with water, then handing it to him. “We'll need to find more.”
“Yeah,” Kyle mumbled between bites of food. He felt the sudden urge to urinate, and glanced about the cargo hold. “How, um...” he trailed off, feeling his cheeks flush.
“How what?”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Kyle admitted.
“Oh, right,” she replied. She glanced about, then made her way to the edge of the crates, peering down. “I'll get a barrel for you.”
“A barrel?”
“I'll empty out one of the barrels,” she reasoned. “You can pee in it, and stuff.”
“Oh,” Kyle mumbled. She knelt down, then swung her legs over the edge, dropping out of sight. Kyle walked to the edge, peering downward, and saw her weaving through the narrow gaps between cargo stacks. Soon she was out of sight.
Kyle sighed, sitting down. He put the cup of water to his lips, then thought better of drinking from it. The more he drank, the more often he'd have to pee.
Kyle heard the crates creak, then saw Ariana pull herself up into view with one hand. In the other was a large ceramic jug.
“Here,” she whispered, handing it to him. “It was in one of the crates.”
“Thanks,” Kyle muttered, gazing at the jug dubiously. It would certainly do for peeing, but anything else would require exquisite aim. And lots of toilet paper. “Um, can you...?” Ariana stared blankly at him, and he blushed again, motioning for her to turn around. She smiled, turning away from him. He paused, then walked over to the other end of the crates, turning away from her and getting the jug into position. He paused again, then turned around. “I'm going down,” he stated. When she didn't answer, he activated his gravity boots, jumping down the twenty-odd feet to the floor below. He glanced up at the stack of crates, then weaved through the narrow spaces of the cargo hold until he was well out of her line of sight. Then he hurriedly conducted his business.
That done, he stared at the jug for a long moment, not quite sure what to do with it.
“Dump it out a window,” a voice whispered in his ear.
Kyle cried out, spinning around and nearly dropping the jug. He saw Ariana standing there.
“Geez!” he whispered harshly, putting a hand to his suddenly pounding heart. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“Sorry,” she whispered back. “I knew you were done.”
“You were listening?” he exclaimed. She put her finger to her lips.
“I can't help it,” she whispered. She covered her ears with her hands, then uncovered them. “I could still hear everything.”
“Great,” Kyle muttered. Suddenly, the thought o
f pooping terrified him. Ariana seemed oblivious to his despair, leading him to the far wall of the hold. Together they forced one of the windows open, and Kyle emptied the jug's contents. That done, they made their way back up to the top of their tower of crates.
“You should sleep,” Ariana recommended. Kyle nodded, stifling a sudden yawn. She was right; he was exhausted. It was almost certainly way past his bedtime, although there was no way to tell what time it was. But there wasn't anything to sleep on but the hard wooden tops of the crates. Ariana concentrated, and a faint rectangle of blue light appeared a foot above the crates at his side. He frowned, passing his hand over the rectangle, and raised his eyebrows in surprise when it pushed his hand up and away. It was a flat gravity field...something he'd never learned to weave. He was instantly jealous.
Ariana motioned for him to lay down.
Kyle yawned again, taking off his boots, then dropping carefully onto his side on the gravity field, half-expecting to fall straight through it onto the crates. But it held him easily, gently floating him a half-foot above. He sighed, rolling onto his back and staring up at Ariana. She smiled down at him, reaching out with one pale hand and touching his cheek. After their long flight over the ocean, her hand was icy cold, and he shivered with her touch. She drew her hand back, but he grabbed it with his own, squeezing it gently and smiling back at her.
“We did it,” he whispered.
She nodded happily, looking radiant in the shadows, her eyes glittering in the faint light of the lanterns far below. He felt Ariana squeeze his hand gently. He squeezed back, staring at her silently. She looked different somehow, more vibrant. She was usually so reserved, even somber at times...especially since her death. Now she looked more lively than she ever had when she was alive, a bright smile on her face.
“We did,” she whispered back, giving his hand another squeeze. Then she took off one of the backpacks, pulling out something fluffy and white and handing it to him. He recognized it immediately; it was the dreamweaver pillow Jenkins had left him.
“Thanks,” he mouthed, tucking the pillow under his head. He yawned then, shifting his weight on the gravity field. His eyelids grew irresistibly heavy, and he closed them. He felt Ariana's hand squeeze his one more time, and then sleep claimed him.
Chapter 13
Kalibar stepped out of the large shower stall in his master bathroom, absently grabbing the towel Jenkins had left for him and patting drops of water from his bare skin. That done, he placed the towel back on the towel bar, then grabbed his bathrobe, slipping into it. The comforting softness of the fabric was a welcome reprieve from the coarse black uniform he’d worn all day. It was a simple luxury, but one he looked forward to every evening.
He sighed then, taking the sharp right turn from his bathroom into the bedroom. He walked up to his bed and sat down, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
It had been a long day.
He pulled down the blanket, then laid down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He glanced at his right hand, at the faint lines of blue light coming from the magical rings on his fingers. Every night, he reminded himself of what he'd been given, this gift of sight. Every night, he tried to remember what it had been like to be blind.
He took a deep breath, then let it out, shaking his head. A week ago, he'd watched as his world had been nearly destroyed around him, struggling against the petty politics of the Council. Now the Council – largely due to Goran's influence – had mostly ceased its bickering, banding together to rebuild the city and improve its defenses. Kyle’s K-Array promised to revolutionize the magical sciences, providing more new patterns in a week than had been discovered in centuries. And he and Erasmus had been pardoned by the Council for their use of the Right of Dictatorship. Everything had been going so well...for once.
Kalibar sighed, feeling an all-too-familiar hopelessness come over him.
And now Ampir was dead.
There was little recourse now, he knew. If Xanos was truly Sabin – the Ancient traitor, the destroyer of the original Empire – then there would be no stopping him. The K-Array would not save them. Even Kyle's weapon – the bomb that Ampir had given the boy – had little chance of working. Sabin had defeated Ampir, after all; no weapon of Ampir's could be trusted to destroy the self-proclaimed god. No, the only thing that could stop Sabin now was the force of persuasion. Diplomacy.
And that, Kalibar knew, was a long shot.
He sighed again, rolling onto his side. Marcus would have told him to start with diplomacy, not end with it. Marcus had never agreed with Kalibar’s vision for the Empire. Marcus had spent his career traveling beyond the Empire, to the various tribes that once existed beyond its borders. He'd lived with them, learned their customs, and gained their trust. And he'd gotten many of them to put down their weapons and join the Empire voluntarily, promising them a better life. And he'd given it to them.
Not all the tribes had been so convinced, however. Marcus had nearly been killed on several occasions, when he'd ventured into tribal territory that had resisted his influence. They'd shown Marcus exactly what they'd thought of his methods, raiding the Empire's border cities and burning them to the ground.
That had been right before Kalibar started training as a Battle-Weaver. Before his wife had killed herself.
Kalibar had spent his career using war as a means of peace. He'd seen what war could do, the horror of it. He knew that some people would never stop fighting, would never listen to reason. All of the tribes who had refused diplomacy met Kalibar on the battlefield. And they had all been conquered.
A generation of war that had ensured a united Empire. A peace that had reigned since the end of Kalibar's first term as Grand Weaver.
They'd called him a blood-thirsty imperialist, his opponents. Goran had been particularly vocal in criticizing him. Kalibar knew that the blood of countless men was on his hands, had to live with the knowledge that his decisions had caused so much suffering. But he'd justified it with the knowledge that millions more would have died had he not so acted.
And now, in a cruel twist of fate, he was the defiant one, facing an enemy far more powerful, an enemy that refused to let his people live as they saw fit. The Empire had been reduced to a lowly tribe, facing annihilation by a behemoth...literally and figuratively. And his only recourse now was diplomacy...the very tactic Marcus had pleaded with him to use.
Kalibar sighed, rolling onto his back and shaking his head.
Oh, what cruel irony, he mused. If only Marcus could see me now.
Still, he could not fully accept such an end for the Empire. Despite what he'd told Kyle and Ariana, a truce with Sabin was tantamount to allowing the man to run the Empire. Sabin would be a consultant only in name. With the ability to destroy the Empire at any time, he would have complete control.
It was no wonder that Kalibar couldn't let go of the idea of Kyle's bomb. A weapon that might – just might – be able to destroy Sabin was impossible for Kalibar to ignore. What if worked? What if, against all odds, Ampir's weapon had the capability to save the Empire?
What if, against all odds, his children were right?
He yawned then, despite himself, feeling the insidious magic of the dreamweaver pillow under his head exerting its influence on him. He was thankful for it, knowing that if it were not for that magic, he would never have been able to sleep tonight. He felt his concentration falter, his worries scattering like leaves in the wind, and he closed his eyes. Within seconds, he was asleep.
* * *
“Grand Weaver Kalibar!”
Kalibar groaned, opening his eyes and lifting his head off of his pillow. He squinted against the painfully bright light shining through his bedroom windows. He heard someone knock at his door.
“Grand Weaver Kalibar!” the voice repeated.
“One moment,” Kalibar yelled out. He sat up, resisting the dreamweaver pillow's seductive call for him to go back to sleep, and got up from his bed, pulling his bathrobe tightly around him. He walked to
the door, weaving the long, complex pattern that would unlock it. The door swung open, revealing one of his elite guards.
“Grand Weaver,” the guard greeted, saluting crisply. Kalibar waved away the formality.
“At ease,” he grumbled. “What is it?”
“Your children, sire,” the guard answered. Then he hesitated, lowering his gaze. Kalibar frowned at him.
“Yes?”
“They're missing,” the guard stated.
Kalibar stared at the man, feeling a chill run through him.
“What do you mean, they're missing?” he demanded.
“We did a routine check this morning,” the guard clarified. “Neither of them were in their beds.”
“Did you perform a search of the Tower?” Kalibar pressed, his tone sharp. The guard nodded.
“Already under way,” he confirmed. “But sire, we have reason to believe they've left the Tower.”
“Why?”
“Kyle's bedroom window was open,” the guard explained. Kalibar stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Open?” he asked. “How could it have been opened? They were warded!”
“They were apparently...drained,” the guard explained, his tone apologetic.
“Drained?” Kalibar exclaimed. He felt another chill go through him, and saw the blood drain from the elite guard's face. Kalibar glanced down, realizing that his fists were clenched, the knuckles white. He forced them to relax, shoving down the panic that threatened to rise within him.
“Everything in Kyle's bedroom was drained,” the guard continued, his voice trembling. “And we found...hair in the bathroom sink,” he added. “We believe it was Ariana's.”
“Her hair?” Kalibar asked incredulously. “Why...?” He cut the question off, his jaw snapping shut. His eyes narrowed. “What else did you find?”
