The King of the Skies

by Robert J. Crane

  The moment it was wide enough to allow my passage, I ducked into the gap, turning by half to squeeze into the space.

  After the usual dance of color, I was deposited into the desert I’d seen in the compass—only it was twilight rather than the daytime view the compass had presented, the sky stretching out like a beautiful navy quilt flecked with an uneven scattering of sparkling diamonds. The rocky spires were deep red, same as the desert underfoot, like the surface of Mars. Towering high, eroded into smooth columns, they were streaked with horizontal bars of purple and blue.

  This world was almost noiseless. Like a snowscape, kind of, it was so peculiarly empty of sound that I thought for a moment that my hearing had been left back in London.

  Then the illusion was broken: Heidi was through after me, then Carson and Clay, all of them exiting in a clatter via the gateway’s black antipode, which was painted across the back of a spindly rock spire.

  “Whoa,” said Carson, stopping dead. Clay bumped into his back, apologized and stepped around; Carson barely seemed to have noticed.

  “It’s like the Spurn Wyle,” he said.

  “You’ve been?” Clay asked.

  “We cut through a couple of times,” I answered.

  “It’s pretty,” said Carson.

  “I think I like this better,” said Heidi. “Less functional, though.”

  Carson sniffed. “Smells like gunpowder.”

  I couldn’t fault him on that description. It smelled like a battle had happened here, only the smell of burned explosives lingering after the debris of war had been cleared away.

  Bub was last of all—and no wonder. With the gateway conforming to the side of the car, he hadn’t much room at all. The exit was just as bad, squashed down as if it too had to be squeezed into a space no higher than my chest.

  He appeared pauldron first, followed by his face and chest. He grunted, stuck for a moment. The gateway’s exit strained around him as he pushed, pushed … and then with a low pop he was dispelled, landing heavily in the sand. A shower of it went up around him, a cascading curtain of red particles.

  “Little tight,” he remarked, clambering to his feet.

  “Do you think anyone saw you?” Carson asked.

  “Have you seen him?” Heidi countered. “Of course people saw him. No offense, Bub, but you’re as obvious as they come.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Carson said. “You can’t help it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Gang’s all here. Where to?”

  Clay pointed. “This way.” He directed us toward one of the closer rocky structures, fatter than the delicate spires—though looking back at the one we had exited from, it was hard to think of them as in any way delicate when its base was some thirty feet wide.

  Carson followed my backward look, and his eyes roved the rock spire’s full height. “What if it crashes down on us?” he asked.

  “It’s sustained thousands, if not millions, of years of erosion, probably by a lake or sea that used to be here,” said Heidi. “Those pillars are the parts of the rock left that could withstand it. I don’t think a little breeze is going to be enough to push it over the edge now. Come on, Yates; you’re supposed to be giving the science lessons, not me.”

  “Where exactly are we?” I asked Clay.

  “Oluk,” he answered.

  “Look at what?” Carson asked.

  Heidi rolled her eyes. “That’s this place’s name, dummy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oluk,” Clay repeated. “O-L-U-K.”

  “That’s a weird name for a place.”

  Heidi sighed. “Everything is weird as far as you are concerned.”

  We kept our pace quick through the desert. If an end were in sight, I couldn’t make it out; certainly there did not seem to be any mountains on the horizon, nor any change to the landscape that suggested the crimson sand terminated. It was just a rolling desert, mostly flat, a thin layer of sand upon harder ground. Scrubby bushes reared up from these in places, and more rarely stood a cactus, thin and dark and spiny. The rocks reaching to the sky provided the only real topographical changes—extreme ones at that.

  Clay forged the path for a fat, squat rock, low to the ground (relatively) and very wide. It was slightly domed, and deep red like the rest of the desert. Like Ayers Rock, kind of, but mottled with purple-blue streaks that seemed to flow into the twilit sky.

  It was a long way off. I started to wish we’d stopped at the Asda after all to grab a drink and maybe a protein bar.

  “Finally,” Carson wheezed when we were almost there. The rock rose high above us now. Though smaller than the spires, it was massive, on a scale I couldn’t comprehend—and that was even spending my Earthbound time in London, home of tower blocks and tall office buildings, and a stupidly big Ferris wheel. “Couldn’t we have cut through a bit closer? Like on the face of it?”

  “I don’t know of any other cut-through points,” said Clay apologetically.

  I consulted the compass, waving it nearby. “Ocean to the left …”

  “Cacti to the right,” Heidi murmured.

  A stairway was carved into the side of the rock. It was almost human in scale, so a bipedal species like us must have made it, but the steps were just a little taller and wider than would be comfortable for anyone below a height of around seven feet.

  If the stairs snaked the whole way up the rock, or even halfway, I’d have foreseen serious problems in our future with Carson. But it didn’t. It rose the equivalent of maybe three flights, then flattened into a square opening carved in the rock’s side, which disappeared into darkness. Enough verticality for Carson to get spooked, not enough for him to grey out and risk tumbling off and caving his head in on the desert floor.

  “Up here,” said Clay.

  “It’s a temple?” Heidi asked, not mounting the first step. She peered at Clay suspiciously.

  “It is,” he confirmed.

  “And how’d you know this?”

  “I have connections.”

  “Uh huh.” She didn’t sound appeased

  “It’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Sure it will.” Not convinced.

  I figured the best way to show Heidi was to show her, so I took the first step. “It’s okay. Just stay close to the wall, and we’ll be all right. That okay with you, Carson?”

  He looked past me, eyes tracking the number of stairs we had to scale. Swallowing hard enough for me to hear, he pushed his glasses up his nose and said, “I’ve done heights once today; I can do them again, right?”

  “Right,” I said, doing my best to sound confident in him.

  The five of us mounted the staircase, Clay and I leading together, then Carson, who pressed as close to the rock’s wall as he could. Heidi walked alongside him, her right hand ready to shoot out and grab him if he teetered. Bub took up the rear, I assumed to offer another barrier should Carson teeter. Not a great one, mind; if he fell backward, he ran the risk of getting impaled on Bub’s armor. But better that than falling and having his brain explode out of his head.

  At the top, Carson heaved for breath. He’d fallen maybe a dozen steps behind, and took them slowly. Possibly he was just out of breath; possibly he was struggling to block out the desert floor to his left, getting farther and farther away as he climbed. Heidi walked patiently beside him, watching his footsteps all the way.

  I glanced up the entranceway carved into the rock’s side. Square, it disappeared into darkness.

  “You got a light?” I asked Clay.

  “For a cigarette?”

  “A flashlight.” I patted the one attached to my belt. “This one’s a bit weak; don’t think it’ll manage so well.”

  “Oh. No, sorry.”

  “We are as prepared as always, then,” Heidi said.

  “The builders of these places were usually kind enough to kit them out with some form of magic,” Clay said. “If we step just far enough in, we’ll—there.”

  He’d descended into the passagewa
y, and maybe ten feet in, it had happened: a light winked into life above his head. Like a candle’s flame, it was soft and yellow, and flickered on an unfelt breeze.

  “Convenient,” said Heidi.

  “Like all these things,” Carson said.

  We moved into the temple in the same formation we’d taken the stairs, Clay and I taking point, Carson and Heidi in the middle, and Bub taking the rear. His fist enclosed the handle of his blade, ready to unsheathe it at a moment’s notice. I tapped Decidian’s Spear through my pocket, shrunk down to its bright red and yellow umbrella form. Not ultra convenient if anything went amiss and I should need to yank it free—but then I did insist on snapping off those metal loops that kept it in place.

  The passage drove deeper and deeper but remained level and straight. Frail as the light was, it was difficult to penetrate far ahead; every dozen or so steps forward, another glowing light turned on, but illuminated only the next fifteen feet ahead of us. It was impossible to tell where the end of the passageway would be.

  After I’d started counting the ethereal flames and reached eleven, the end of the tunnel finally came into view: ten feet ahead, if that, the rock walls and ceiling vanished, leaving a platform that extended into the room beyond. It didn’t extend far, by the look of it, though for now that cavern was not illuminated.

  We stepped out—

  It was like someone had hit the switch for a floodlight. A fierce white light exploded from the darkness, as if a god had taken the sun, shrunk it down, and then brought it right into this cavernous chamber to live below the high, rocky ceiling.

  The room was thrown into stark relief below the too-white orb that hovered above the center of the arena.

  I had expected something more similar to the temples we usually sought out, but I didn’t get it, or at least not entirely. Instead of a platform running about the edge of the cavern, which was the size of at least six football stadiums arranged in an oblong, we found ourselves on a single stone landing maybe six feet by six. Another set of stairs connected to it, carved into the rock. They descended almost as far as we’d climbed outside, down to a ground level strewn with rock. It was blood red, awash with streaks of purple and blue, and the shadows thrown by the supernova fire overhead were long and terribly black. They shrank to points closer in … yet still, even in the center, there was only that chaotic tumble of boulders, placed with no rhyme or reason, leading to nowhere at all.

  I frowned. “You’d think there’d be a central platform or something. You know; something to rally toward.”

  “Maybe this is an actual complicated puzzle,” Carson said, a note of longing in his voice. “One that requires brainpower to figure out, rather than physical strength.”

  “I doubt it,” said Heidi. “It’s a rubble field. If brains are needed here, I’ll give you a thousand coup.”

  Carson sighed. “Guess I’m sitting this one out again.”

  “Start hitting the gym,” Heidi told him. Scrutinizing the space, she said to Clay, “So your key is somewhere in this room, is it?”

  “Potentially,” Clay said, and if the answer hadn’t been uncertain enough in its content, his tone helped make up for it.

  “You’re not even sure.”

  “My information says—”

  Heidi stilled him with a hand. “Whatever. Let’s go and get this over with, before Captain Hook shows up.” To me: “I’m assuming we can’t do a damned thing to help out here?”

  “You can help,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  Heidi shrugged. “I thought our posse had been replaced with your line launcher.”

  I had thought about it, I couldn’t lie. Not replacing Heidi, Carson, and Bub with it—I would probably miss the head butting eventually, not to mention the way Carson treated Bub like a dog half the time—but definitely, as I took stock of the temple, I’d thought that the line launcher could make scaling these things a breeze.

  Plus Clay was here. I was pretty certain he would be super impressed to see me sailing through the air on it.

  But … Heidi had a sullen sort of look about her, the first new emotion she’d shown today —apart from suspicion, and concern for Carson. After sidelining them earlier while collecting the Necklace of the Regent Adjunct, I figured I should include them, even if it would slow me down … and prevent me from showing off any of my cool moves to Clay.

  Try to be positive, I thought to myself, This’ll show him how humble you are. People like humble.

  “We’re doing this together, gang,” I said brightly. “Let’s go down there.”

  We tackled the steps, Carson once again keeping close to the wall. The staircase was wide enough that he’d need to take an impressive fall to go off it sideways, but the lack of railing was concern enough for him to take it extra super careful.

  I could line launcher him down there, I thought, and get him through this immediately.

  No. No line launcher. Even if it was burning a hole in the base of my spine.

  At the bottom, the layout of the temple appeared even more impenetrable than ever. It looked like someone had scooped up boulders like a fistful of pebbles and let them rain down inside here, sealing the rock dome above afterward.

  “It’s like a Pokémon gym,” Carson said.

  Heidi rolled her eyes.

  “How do you think we do this?” I asked Clay.

  He shrugged. “Way these things tend to work, I’d imagine getting to the center is the main goal. There’s probably something there.”

  “Looks like a cakewalk from here,” said Heidi. She sighed, “Won’t be, of course. How’re we doing this? Just squeezing through the gaps?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “Try to keep track of where you’ve been, and avoid doubling back on yourself. Stay close enough to communicate, but split up enough to investigate our own paths.” I squinted, thinking. “On second thought, Carson, you stick with someone with a weapon, just in case things do go south.”

  “Once again, a shame you made me throw away every cinquedea I’ve laid my hands on.”

  “Not for us,” said Heidi, “I like living stab wound-free.”

  Carson pouted.

  “Clay, do you have a weapon?” I asked him.

  “I’m always prepared,” was his answer.

  “Sure you are,” said Heidi. “Shame ‘prepared’ means having none of the most important details.”

  “I said my contact—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Bub, yell if you get stuck anywhere, okay? Always Prepared over here will probably have a butter spell to slip you out with.”

  “She’s standoffish today,” Clay muttered to me.

  “She’s standoffish every day.”

  Heidi huffed. She was about to open her mouth to say something when a scrabbling noise came from behind us.

  We turned as one, backward—

  Then my gaze shifted up.

  A face had appeared at the top of the landing: a man’s, square, all lines and greying stubble. One cheek had a nick taken out of it, maybe half the size of a penny across, visible from so low only thanks to the stark relief provided by the light shining from the ceiling. Salt and pepper hair was styled into an elaborate coiffure I was sure could not support itself. His chin jutted out like a cartoon action hero’s, more pronounced than seemed reasonable.

  “Well, well,” he said. Deep-voiced, he sounded American, in a generic but slightly off way. “What do we have here? Children? In a temple?”

  And pompous. Loads of pompous.

  I scowled.

  At my elbow, Heidi scowled even more darkly. “Piss off!” she shouted.

  The man above chuckled, a dimple appearing in his scarred cheek. “That’s not very polite, young lass.”

  “Who is he?” Carson asked me.

  “Who am I?” He held his arms wide, as if gesturing to a full room of people. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I—” he grinned, showing perfect teeth that would give Clay a run for his money

  “—am the K
ing of the Skies.”

  6

  And here he was, as promised. Maybe a little bit too convenient, his showing up right as we were about to tackle this temple—I mean, really, what were the odds? It was like running into Borrick all the damned time, always appearing on the doorstep of whichever mission we were embarking upon at that moment.

  But then I remembered that we were only here because Clay’s informant had said that this King of the Skies was moving immediately on this quest, and we’d had to set off straight away to head him off.

  King of the Skies. Pfft. I had a few things to say about that.

  “King of what skies?” I demanded, rolling my eyes in an imitation of Heidi that would make her proud. “Any in particular? Or is it all of them, everywhere?”

  “Yeah,” said Carson—and his tone immediately irked me, because he wasn’t trying to be snide, he was genuinely curious in that agonizing way he tended to be—like when he’d failed to let evolution on Harsterra drop. “Is it a title someone gave you? Or did you come up with it yourself?”

  “Go on, nitpick him,” said Heidi. At my look, she said, “What? Gets the heat off us for a change. Maybe Nobeard’ll get so annoyed he gives up before even tackling the obstacle course.”

  “I gave the title to myself,” Burnton said grandly, “because there was no one kingly enough to bestow it upon me. Though if you doubt its accuracy, perhaps you’d like to inquire of my crew. I’m sure they’ll be happy to stand behind me.”

  Said crew was spilling onto the landing now. They could’ve come off a production line. All men, they were dressed in identical velvety black garb. Sure, they were some aesthetic differences, but they were minor. Maybe six inches separated the shortest from the tallest. All had black hair, all cut short—to give away Burnton as the leader of this ragtag team, I supposed, if his silver-edged, luxuriously flowing cloak didn’t hint at that. They were all muscular, probably not an inch of fat on them, torsos a V shape I would’ve found attractive if they weren’t, you know, the bad guys.

  They also carried swords, curving blades at home in any children’s tale of the high seas.