Lit by the soft glow of electric lamps, the cavernous envelope disappeared into shadows fore and aft. The ladder stretched into darkness and the enormous gas cells, as Avnai had called them, swelled on either side of it like roc’s eggs. They inched their way down, down beneath the swelling curves, the only sounds their breathing and the occasional clink on the ladder and the whistling of the wind from below.
Finally, they reached the bottom of the airship’s massive envelope. Here, there was no hatch, just an open space. The ladder continued for another six feet of space before it dropped into the gondola. Elazar paused.
“Airswords out.” Azriyqam drew hers with numb fingers and saw Merav do the same, her eyes wide with fear. “Five men left,” Elazar said. “We don’t know how they’re armed. I’ll drop first, then Azriyqam, then Merav. Straight down the hatch. Wrap your wings around you so the wind doesn’t catch them. You must move as soon as you’re through. Kill the first man you see, then demand surrender.”
“K-kill?” gulped Merav.
“This is war, Merav,” said Elazar, his voice flat as iron. “We’ll kill them because we have to. Your first man, you kill. The second only if he has a weapon. We must have this ship. Failing that, we must take it from them. This is your duty as a sworn liege lady of the Crown and Throne. Can you do this or not?”
Merav inhaled a shuddering breath, frozen.
“Merav,” said Elazar. “You, and I, and the Lady Senaatha? All of us are already dead if things remain as they are, and this ship gets back to the Consortium. We have been given a chance to strike upward from the grave and reclaim our lives, but the grave will not be left empty. It will be filled with them or us. The way out is through the men below. Do you understand?”
Merav nodded convulsively.
“Princess Azriyqam,” said Elazar, “follow me closely and move away from the ladder as soon as you land.” He wrapped his wings about himself tightly, like a living blanket. “I am going…now.”
He dropped through the hatchway.
He was gone before Azriyqam realized she should already have been following him. She folded her wings and jumped. Wind struck her, and she felt her spine pass sickeningly close to the edge of the hatch, and then she landed. Reflexively, she swept out her wings for balance.
“Move!” Elazar snarled.
Azriyqam leaped toward her mentor. A man lay curled at his feet, and Elazar stabbed at a younger man who was trying to get around him. Behind her, Merav landed heavily. Azriyqam’s eyes were riveted to the young man’s face. It was a mask of terror, but he couldn’t get past Elazar, who had positioned himself between the two doors leading forward.
The man’s hands were empty, and it was all he could do to keep Elazar from striking him. His back was toward Azriyqam, but she froze, airswords wrapped around her fingers.
Merav plunged past her, screaming. Her swords went through the young soldier’s back, again and again. She darted back, her eyes wide with terror and sobbing convulsively.
There was an instant of stillness, broken only by the wind. Then Azriyqam felt the shuddering of heavy footsteps through the deck. Elazar faced the doors and stepped forward. “Stay behind me,” he said over his shoulder.
Azriyqam drew the captured pistol in her right hand and pinched it firmly. She could barely hold it in her two fingers.
Three Consortium soldiers burst through the door simultaneously, guns in their hands. They saw Azriyqam and Merav, but Elazar stood in the blind spot between the doors.
Azriyqam had never seen her mentor fight. He moved like a dancer. In three sweeping movements, all three of the soldiers were down, pierced through their chests and sprawled on the deck.
“Forward. The pilot,” said Elazar, stripping a pistol off one of the fallen. He held it as awkwardly as she did but looked no less certain of himself for that. “I’ll go to port. You, starboard. Remember, do not shoot unless you have to. Merav, stand watch to make sure no one else comes upon us from the rear.”
Azriyqam opened the door, but before she was two steps down the corridor, she heard a tense voice yell, “Well? What the hell was that?” She burst into the semicircular control room. Elazar and the pilot faced each other, pistols out.
“Surrender,” said Elazar. “I won’t ask you again.”
“I’ll take you with me!” shouted the pilot, his voice going high.
Azriyqam pointed her gun at the side of his head, summoning all her strength to hold it steady. She aimed her remaining airsword at his gut. “Surrender now,” she heard herself say. “And if you harm him, I’ll feed you to the dragon.”
The pilot’s pistol clattered to the deck.
Azriyqam had space to look around. She was in a semicircular cabin with huge glass windows looking out into the darkness. The searchlight hung down, a spear of white pointing at the beach below. There was a great wheel and more levers than she could fathom what to do with, as well as a panel full of instruments fit to make her head swim.
“Place your hands on the console,” said Elazar, “and touch nothing without my permission.” The pilot obeyed.
“Now,” said Elazar. “Take us in for a landing. You’re going to take us home.”
* * * * *
Chapter 13
When Azriyqam woke, the sun was well up and the hut was deserted except for Zhad, who had been the last to watch their prisoner. She stretched muscles still protesting from last night’s exertions. It was still hard to believe she had really done all those things, but when she emerged from the shadow of her makeshift roof, she stood motionless for several seconds, amazed by the proof of it.
The great skyship hung above the beach, moored to several trees and pointed darkward, larger in the daylight than it had ever looked last night. It hung there like a defiant rock or a castle tower tipped on its side and kept suspended by enchantment. Avnai had said it was small, as skyships went, but it looked to Azriyqam as though it was at least as long as the battlecarrier’s deck had been. A rope ladder hung down to the beach, pegged there.
Below the airship, Senaatha lay in her torpor.
Merav approached Azriyqam in a daze. She looked haggard, with reddened eyes. “The Lord Avnai wants to see you aboard the airship. He said there’s breakfast by the fire.”
“Merav? Are you all right?”
The girl’s mouth worked for a moment. “I-I’m fine.”
“You need to get some sleep,” Azriyqam said.
Merav looked at her, eyes wide. “How do I do that?” she said, her voice quavering. “How can I sleep? When I close my eyes I see his face turning toward me, coughing out his blood again. Y-you’ve killed before. What’s the secret? Is it something the king’s blood just does; it’s over and all right?” Her voice rose and broke.
“You had to,” she heard herself say. “Elazar was right. You had to kill him or we might all have died. There’s no secret to it. You just go on.”
“He wasn’t even really fighting,” whispered Merav. “He was just trying to get away.”
“We weren’t fighting, either. We were just trying to get away and they sent their airplanes after us to shoot Senaatha down. Then they sent that after us so that they could hunt us down on this island. You killed one of the Sea People with a Command when they attacked us aboard the Centennial Phoenix. Why is this so different?”
“It’s not the same. It was the Command that did it, not me, and there were so many of them, then, there wasn’t time. I wasn’t even really sure I killed him. All I did was a strong stun.”
“If Elazar had still been fighting when those three burst through the door, we might all have been killed. Whether you like how you did it or not, you probably saved us all. So, I suppose that makes you a hero. You’ll have to live with that, too.”
Merav grimaced. “I always thought being a hero would feel better.”
Azriyqam nodded. She was familiar with that feeling. “Have some breakfast with me.”
By the fire, boxes bearing Consortium military in
signia were stacked. Zhad was cooking in an iron skillet. “The supply problem is solved,” he said in greeting.
After two days of fish without any spices, the smell of bacon and eggs seasoned with pepper and dill was heavenly. He served them out on wooden plates. “Courtesy of our captive.” He nodded toward the skyship. “Your brother has been instructing him on his new duties. Now, I was told to feed you, but also to hurry you along.”
Azriyqam shoveled bread and eggs and cheese into her mouth. It was amazing how quickly the basics of life could become the luxuries of a palace when you were denied them. For all that life on a Century Ship had been stale drudgery, she had never been starved. The ship had fed itself from the sea and from its gardens, and those were tended with quite literal religious attention. The Consortium knew at least as well as her childhood captors how sailing was hungry work and didn’t stint in feeding its sailors. Even the sailors of the air, it seemed.
With her stomach feeling properly full for the first time in three days, Azriyqam launched herself into the air and began a slow climb up to the airship. This time, she approached through the half-open back of the gondola. Avnai and Elazar were waiting for her. The deck where the bodies had lain was clean.
“You wanted to see me?” Azriyqam said.
“I’m afraid so.”
Azriyqam blinked. Her brother’s voice was thin and his face was pale. Elazar’s face was like carven stone.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“I think, if I understand Elazar correctly, I know why the Theurge led you to the photograph of the Ekkaia in response to your Command for it to find a way to save Threlya’s life.”
“You do?”
“Yes, but it’s easier to show you.” He turned and led them forward to the cabin.
Between the two narrow passages which they had charged along last night, a thin door gave onto a small cabin dominated by maps and photos. One of them was almost the same photograph she had seen aboard the Talion, but there were smaller ones as well. Many and more, from all angles.
“This is a map of Ekkaia’s progress.” Avnai indicated the largest of the maps on the forward cabin wall. It showed a vast expanse of ocean dotted with tiny islands. Azriyqam could only see one large feature on it, in the upper right corner, a dark green aggregation of irregular circular shapes that looked like a cluster of islands. Ekkaia’s course curved gently toward it: the Grove, and the end of the Century Ship’s twenty-year voyage. There, just in front of Ekkaia’s marked position, was a red dot inside a circle.
“They’re almost home,” she said. “Why is the skyship tracking them if the Talion already had its planes doing the same job?”
“Because the dirigible can maintain a continuous watch. The airplanes are taking the photos to plan the attack, but they don’t want to lose track of the ship. They must have been desperate to find us after the flight deck was wrecked or the captain would never have pulled it off that mission.”
“But why is tracking Ekkaia so important?”
“Because they’re going to sink her.”
Azriyqam felt her mouth work. No one sank a Century Ship. Rarely, they did sink. Mach storms on the Endless Ocean could do it, but they were just too big and too rich a prize. Anyone who could sink a Century Ship—and she had no doubt the Consortium could—could surely capture one, but even that didn’t make sense.
“How can they? You said yourself that Senaatha wrecked Talion’s flight deck and they’re too far away to catch up with Ekkaia before she reaches the Grove. They can’t be more than weeks away, now.”
“Five weeks,” said Avnai.
“Then how?”
Avnai picked up a file folder that lay on the table. “There’s nothing solid here, just photographs and messages, but this code-file has a flash-signal code for every ship in the Talion’s task force. Plus one more. By the sound of the name and the range that circle indicates, it’s a submarine. A ship that can travel under the water,” he explained, seeing her confused expression. “It’s slow and it’s short-range, but it’s already there. It’s just waiting for the signal to attack.”
“Just one ship? Is it that big?”
“It’s smaller than this airship, actually, but your dream…it was of the sea spouting fire, wasn’t it? They’ll use incendiaries.” At her blank look, he said, “Guns that will spread fire. They’ll burn the Ekkaia to the waterline.”
Her dreams of the Century Ship burning came back to her. “But why? And what does any of this have to do with Threlya?”
“They’re going to burn Ekkaia so that it will look like dragons did it,” said Avnai. “Elazar? You’re better at explaining this than I am.”
“The Consortium does not like wars they do not start. When the Consortium and the kingdom signed the Treaty of Alliance, one of the terms was that the kingdom recognize the Consortium doctrine that the Endless Ocean belongs to all. This meant our practice of taking tribute from the Century Ships that cross our home waters would have to come to an end.”
Azriyqam nodded. “The Consortium is expanding,” Elazar went on. “None of us in the kingdom were under any illusion we were the first of its intended conquests, nor that would we be the last. We always knew the Century Ships and their Grove would eventually be given the choice to join the Pax Consortica or to fight it, but the Consortium was not about to let us start that war for our own purposes.”
“Because of our autonomy and resistance,” her brother said, with a bitter edge, “the Consortium does not trust us.”
“There is but one rule that the Consortium insists on above all others,” said Elazar. “That is the Pax; that no member state should involve itself in a war except with permission or to defend itself. Any state that breaks the Pax declares war on the Consortium itself and becomes guilty of treason.”
“I don’t understand,” said Azriyqam, her head spinning.
“If a Century Ship is burned and sunk in the same waters where we have always gone marauding against them, what would anyone conclude?”
“Our dragons burned it.”
“Then, when the Consortium sends an embassy to the Grove offering it membership if it joins them in destroying the hated pirates, once and for all, what will the people of the Grove do?”
“They would do it,” she whispered. “They hate us. They hated me for years just for having dragon blood because some dragons help the pirates.”
“So, the Consortium would gain a willing client in place of a reluctant ally and the kingdom would be destroyed. Plus, the Consortium would have shown its power and its willingness to enforce the Pax. The humans of the kingdom will be reduced to subject status, and the halfdragons along with them. Eventually, those will die out, because the dragons will either have to flee darkward or be destroyed. In fact, I cannot imagine the Consortium letting such powerful adversaries live. And Threlya…”
Azriyqam swallowed. “Threlya will be returned to captivity or killed.” She swayed on her feet. The Theurge had known. It had known this and guided her to the one thing that would allow her to save Threlya’s life. “What do we do?”
“There is only one thing we can do,” said her brother. His face was etched with grim lines and he said the words as though they tasted bad. “Ekkaia will be here in two weeks.” He indicated a point on the chart. “At that point, the Consortium submarine will be able to attack it. Before that time, we have to make Ekkaia alter its course.”
“You mean the kingdom…We’ll take the skyship home, and…and Father will—”
“Azriyqam,” Avnai said gently. “Home is seven days away. Ekkaia is five. By the time we got there, it would be too late for him to intercept Ekkaia. The only people who know about this and can do anything to stop it are here in this cabin.”
“That’s impossible,” she said, her heart beating faster in her chest. “They’ll never listen to you. You’re no part of Ekkaia.”
“You were. You can tell them—”
“Tell them what? Do you remember wh
o I was there? I was a freak. I was nobody. You’re still under a death sentence, and Zhad and I helped you escape. No one will believe us. No one will even listen to us. They’ll just put all three of us in that cage and let us die of thirst. We’ll die one by one and the last one living will eat the raw flesh of the dead to stay alive!” She was hysterical. She knew she was hysterical, but the thought of going back to Ekkaia, to her captivity, was unbearable.
“If we do not do this, then within two weeks Ekkaia will burn to the waterline and—”
“Then let them burn!” The words were torn from her throat and seemed to leave fire behind them. She surged from the cabin and flung herself along the corridor, ignoring the cries behind her and flung herself over the rail of the gondola into the uncaring sky.
* * *
At last, the ache in her wings forced her to land. She came down within sight of their camp, but only just. The swollen bulk of the captured skyship hung over it like a poisonous fruit. Like a tumor.
After a long time, she heard footsteps. She didn’t have to look up to know that it was her brother. When he spoke, his voice was low and gentle.
“I’m sure I can’t imagine what I’m asking of you and I won’t pretend that you have no right to want to see Ekkaia burn. But if it burns, the kingdom burns with it. We can’t fight them, Azriyqam. We tried it once, and the only reason we won even a few victories was due to their own overconfidence and pressure from other enemies. If the Consortium concentrates their might upon us, we lose. That’s why I—why we all—are going to warn Ekkaia. Not because we love them, but because we have to, or it all burns.”
“They’ll kill you,” Azriyqam whispered.
“That’s a strong possibility,” Avnai admitted. “But the Consortium will kill me anyway as a traitor and a rebel. This is the only way forward.”
“Father would not want you to do this,” she said, finally looking up.
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