The King of the Skies

by Robert J. Crane

  “Great work,” Heidi said in her usual flat tone. “Give him all the cliff notes on your brilliant plan. They won’t ever be able to use that to their advantage, like say by trying to head us off.”

  “They know where we’re going anyway!”

  Heidi retorted something, but I lost it to another set of pikes shooting toward us. I threw myself left, and Heidi ducked right just in the nick of time. Impacting a jagged boulder hard, I bit back a hiss of pain as fire lanced up from my elbow.

  “Move,” Heidi ordered, already on her feet.

  Stupid lack of grace, I moaned internally, but followed nevertheless.

  The arena’s center became thicker with rock. The alleys between them grew tighter, forcing us into single-file.

  Heidi’s foot slammed a pressure plate—and two more pikes leapt through the air. I threw myself aside again, grunting in pain.

  “I wish Bub were here,” I moaned. “He would’ve obstructed all of these.”

  “Bub wouldn’t have fit through.”

  “Who is this ‘Bub’?” Burnton called. He was maybe ten feet behind now, leading the charge of men in pursuit of us.

  “Stop earwigging on our conversation!” I yelled.

  “Is it another of your friends? The prissy one with the man-bag? Or the large green fellow with excellent taste in armor?”

  “Bub is the orc,” Heidi snapped back. “And you’re lucky he’s not here, or you and your little gang would’ve been impaled like a pirate kebab by now.”

  “What’s an orc?” Burnton asked. “Barnes?”

  “No idea, sir.”

  “He’s the green one,” Heidi shouted. “How do you not know that?”

  “We don’t have orcs on Harsterra. Though people who get airsick do tend to go that shade.”

  “But how was it not obvious? Don’t you have a brain in that head of yours? Or is it all bone for that tumor of a chin?”

  Burnton chortled—very close now, just one pressure plate behind us. “I appreciate your good-natured ribbing of my looks. I’m pleased you took notice of my chin. Is it not the finest you’ve seen? ‘Strong jaw, strong man,’ the saying goes. And clearly—I’m the strongest.”

  “Faster,” I told Heidi. “They’re gaining.”

  “Thanks for the deduction, Sherlock.” But she put on a burst of speed, only rolling her eyes when we were safely clear of another pressure plate.

  The rocky debris field grew taller the farther in we pushed. Rising higher and higher, the boulders seemed to bend in the direction of the light burning in the center of the ceiling. They formed into tight rings, gaps so narrow that we had to slip through sideways. Forced to slow our pace to a crawl to penetrate the arena’s core, I could only pray every time I inched forward that I would not connect with another pressure plate.

  Our luck held, but still the breath burned in my lungs …

  “Spread out, men,” Burnton ordered. “The prize is close.”

  “Genius!” Heidi called.

  “Thank you,” said Burnton, either not getting her tone, partly muted by the rocks separating us, or simply ignoring it. “Legends often are.”

  “The only legend in this room is me!” I shouted before I could stop myself. Glancing to Heidi, I added hurriedly, “And my friends!” Too late, if the narrowing of her eyes was anything to go by. And it was. It always, always was.

  “You jest,” said Burnton, “but maybe one day you could become a legend. Work hard, train well—and brush your teeth with Harpman’s Peppermint Fluoride-Boost brushing powder, just like me.”

  Heidi blinked, frowned. “Is … is that product placement?”

  “It’s my first endorsement deal. Mention my name, and you’ll pay full price!”

  “That’s not a deal!”

  Me, at the same time: “Why haven’t we gotten any endorsement deals?”

  “Because of sexism, and—hey!”

  I turned to follow Heidi’s gaze—

  Burnton had erupted through a gap ahead of us, taking advantage of our stopping to talk to overtake us.

  Cursing, we leapt after him and the ream of pirates following in his wake.

  “Come back, you arse!” I shouted.

  “Watch your mouth!” Burnton shouted back, looking over his shoulder gleefully. “Language like that is not very ladylike.”

  “You sexist bloody—” And Heidi gave him some language to actually be offended by, launching it in a tirade that took a full set of lungs to expel.

  Burnton only laughed harder, and pushed farther ahead. “Now you’re talking like a pirate! Bully for you!”

  Damn it, why had we paused to pick apart the nonsense ramblings of this self-indulgent Hook wannabe?

  … and where could I get some of this Harpman’s Peppermint Fluoride-Boost stuff, anyway?

  The rocky cage encircling the very center of the arena dropped away suddenly, to reveal the temple mound. It rose in the middle, not very tall at all. As far as final platforms went, it was pretty standard. A small hill leading up to the apex, where a platform basked in the powerful glow of the sun overhead. Scaling the mound was as straightforward as putting one foot in front of the other—as Clay and Carson were now doing, halfway up!—

  And also dodging pikes thrown in all directions in a never-ending rush of wind.

  Burnton and his men had arrayed themselves behind the scant rocks placed for cover between the mound and the rock walls we’d entered from. Heidi and I leapt behind another, pressing down low to avoid the onslaught happening all around us.

  A pike crashed into the dirt next to us. Flecks of gravel sprayed against our faces.

  Another pike narrowly missed Heidi, rebounding off the rock we cowered behind.

  “Watch yourselves,” said Burnton, nodding to us. “One of those landing true will send you right to the other side of the arena again, or worse. Why, a stiff breeze where we come from would do precisely the same, which is why our women have to be sturdier than you. You’d just float off our ships.”

  “You’re not proving me wrong on the sexism charge!” Heidi belted back.

  I said, “I think he’s just saying he likes full-figured women.”

  “That I do,” said Burnton. “Nothing personal, little farixie.”

  My turn to frown. “What in the world is a farixie?”

  “Use your brain,” Heidi said. “It’s a cross between a faerie and a pixie.”

  “Oh. That’s kind of obvious, I suppose.”

  “Gee, you think?” Heidi shook her head. “Is Burnton’s airheadedness rubbing off on you already?”

  I opened my mouth to raise an objection, when—

  The pikes stopped firing.

  At the same time, Carson cried from the middle, “We got it! We win!”

  I stuck my head up now the air had cleared.

  Sure enough, Carson and Clay stood atop the temple mound. Lit from above by a white-hot glow, Clay looked like some kind of totally hot, super handsome angel. And Carson … looked like Carson, toting around a dopey manbag and wearing a slightly bloodied blue sweater and carrying his lightsaber pike. But he also held the first key to Brynn Overson’s crypt, lofted high above his head—and I could not help but think the bespectacled nerd was a bit of an angel too.

  Burnton rose too. His band of pirates followed suit, looking from Clay and Carson, to me, and to Burnton and Barnes.

  “Well, curses,” said Burnton. He thumped a fist into his open palm, little anger in it. “But, as a Seeker …” He looked to me. “I acknowledge your victory in this race. Congratulations.” And he stepped out of his cover, toward me, and extended a hand.

  I stared at it dumbly.

  He … was giving up? He wanted to shake?

  He knew we’d won?

  Well, I would not argue with that. A grin spreading over my face, I stepped across to meet him, extending a hand of my own. “Well, that’s very generous of you. Thank y—”

  The moment my palm touched his, a bolt of electricity shot
through me. Emanating from his hand, surging through mine, my wrist, up my arm and into my shoulder, it froze every muscle in my body, seizing them hard—

  The pain ramped up—but I couldn’t scream; my vocal cords had locked too, overridden by the overwhelming current gripping me.

  Burnton’s words came to me from some far-off place, volume dialing down with each he spoke:

  “But I’m afraid that, as a pirate … I cannot let this pass.”

  And that was all I knew.

  8

  I woke to two things, one just before the other. The first was Heidi’s gentle slapping of my face, the initial spark in rousing me.

  The second was full-body pain.

  “Ow,” I moaned, sitting.

  Only that made it even worse. The electroshock that Burnton had unleashed still seemed to buzz around my nerve endings, but my head was where most of the pain had gathered. Sitting sent a thunderous stab of pain shooting through my brain. Rather than ebbing off, that pain remained, bouncing around like a bullet ricocheting over and over again.

  “Geez,” I said, and clasped my head. It felt tender, but couldn’t have been—I guess another effect of Burnton’s little parlor trick. “I am going to need so many painkillers when we get back.”

  “The permitted dose, and no more,” said Heidi. “It’s not honorable for a Seeker to die of liver damage.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled.

  Until now I’d kept my eyes mostly closed. But they had to open sometime, and this was as good a moment as any. So I prised them open—and winced. The world was too bright. Had we been transplanted onto the surface of the sun in the aftermath of this challenge?

  No. Still in the red temple, with its carpet of boulders. Only I was no longer in the center; apparently while I was out, my friends had dragged my body to the edge of the room, where they now squatted over my half-prone form. Looks of concern aplenty in this little circle, I can tell you … although maybe they were just frowning at the over-bright light source glowing at the room’s ceiling, blinding all of us.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He fired lightning out of his hand at you,” said Carson.

  “I remember that. I mean after.”

  “Burnton made off with the crypt key,” said Heidi matter-of-factly.

  My stomach sunk. “Of course he did.”

  “We didn’t have much choice in the matter,” she went on. “He held your unconscious body hostage.”

  My wince dialed up another notch. I could only cringe as I imagined it: me, slumped, out cold and impossible to rouse, in Burnton’s arm, held back as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Overson crypt key. My friends might have tried to fight, at first … but with an army of pirates standing between us, and Burnton’s showy, elaborate fighting style, they’d never have stood a chance.

  Stupid Mira. Why’d I gone and got myself zapped by the Seeker/pirate version of a greying Nathan Fillion?

  “He said he’d never have done anything to hurt you,” Carson said, “after he handed you over. Actually, he was kind of apologetic.”

  “Didn’t stop him from taking the key,” Clay lamented. He had his arms folded, and looked probably most gutted out of all of us—except me, obviously; I didn’t think there was any way a person could feel more dejected than I could right now, having totally screwed this up at the last hurdle. Yet, though his disappointment was clear, Clay still looked down at me with the same concern as Carson and Heidi and Bub—a more handsome version of that concern.

  I sighed. “Weasel.”

  “I think Borrick is more of a weasel than Burnton is,” said Heidi, sticking out a hand to help me up, “but it’s neck-and-neck.”

  Heidi’s hand alone wasn’t enough to pull me up; my body had gone somewhat gelatinous, between the zap and the unconsciousness, and the fog was taking its time to seep out of my system. So I flailed for another hand, hoping Clay would step up—and he did, but Carson got in there first, taking my fist. I forced a grimace of a smile in thanks, wishing only a little bit that he’d found himself pinned down by a pike or something in the fray and was still being helped by Bub. (Nothing fatal; just through the collar or something. Maybe a non-dominant limb, if push came to shove.)

  “He’s a pirate,” said Clay, glum. “I don’t think we can be too surprised, really, that he stole what we were here for.”

  “Not surprised a bit,” I muttered. “Been dealing with plenty of it.” Usually Borrick, of course, in these big missions—he never came for the small stuff—but I’d been concerned about the same threat from my brother during our stint in Pharo and Ostiagard.

  To be fair, that had all worked out, I thought to myself.

  Didn’t make it any easier to shake the feeling though.

  “I’m more aggravated than anything,” I said.

  “And unsteady,” said Heidi, as I wobbled on taking my first step. I jerked a hand out to grab her for stability, before I went face first into the stone.

  “It’s passing,” I said.

  “We’ll take the stairs slow anyway,” she said.

  “I can just use my line launcher.”

  “Rather you didn’t,” said Clay.

  “I won’t slip,” I said, very determined now to prove it, show just how much of a trooper I was. I failed my own cause just two steps later, when I managed to come down on the side of my foot somehow and stumbled again. Carson caught me this time, damn him. Just let me fall into Clay, for crying out loud!

  “So they left?” I asked, steering my brain away from this fluttery feeling in my stomach (which, also to be fair, could’ve just as likely been another side-effect of the zap and short stint gone limp and drooling than Clay’s presence). More important things to deal with than an addled brain and Clay’s good looks.

  Stop it, Mira. Stop it now.

  “They left,” Heidi confirmed. “Cut a gateway up on the landing and vanished to their homeworld, by the sound of it.”

  “Great,” I murmured. “No one think to follow them?”

  “Bub offered,” Carson said, to an agreeing nod from the orc. “We talked him out of it by reminding him that it’s a gas giant, with no solid surface, and he’d never get back through.”

  Heidi added, “Plus, they had their airship parked exactly where they needed for the gateway to find something solid to stick onto. I’ll bet anything they moved off pretty quick to prevent one of us following.”

  “How’d you know they parked their airship where they needed it?”

  “Well, see, that’s the funny thing,” Heidi answered. “Their gates weren’t like yours, or mine. They were like Carson’s. Just … not as hellish.”

  “What does ‘hellish’ mean?” Carson asked, looking offended.

  “You know—shuddering, mad openings of death.” Heidi shrugged. “That’s a fair way to describe them, isn’t it?”

  Carson’s mouth downturned. “They’re not that bad.”

  “I think your gates are just fine,” said Bub, patting Carson’s shoulder with a fist that dwarfed it.

  I didn’t, at least not when it didn’t suit me. Heidi and I had witnessed Carson’s gates just a handful of times. Though he’d opened them at opportune moments, most often to save us from the Order of Apdau (scratch that: always to save us from the Order of Apdau), they were terrifying portals. Their edges were sharp and uneven, violent and spasming, capable of opening the ground beneath your feet in a fraction of a second. In our most recent chase through London with the Order, one of Carson’s gates had done lasting damage to Hyde Park. We’d only visited once since, because of fear of being recognized, but still the grass where the gateways had opened had failed to grow back.

  We continued to keep Carson’s ring—once Borrick’s, before Carson pilfered it—safely confiscated.

  “Burnton’s gates show through to the other side in real-time,” Heidi explained. “Which helps, obviously, when you live on a world that is nothing but swirling gas. ‘On’ being perhaps not the best
choice of word.”

  “Great,” I said. “So if we ever do decide to go pay them a visit—” and we certainly would, because I was not letting this key remain in Burnton’s hands for a moment longer than necessary “—we need to use Carson’s hellgates to make it safely through.” I shook my head. “Can’t believe I put ‘Carson’s hellgates’ and ‘safely’ in the same sentence.”

  Carson’s head snapped around. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at the chance to use his stolen ring again, or offended by the term “hellgates,” which made for a strange expression somewhere in the middle.

  “Wipe that … grin, or whatever it is, off your face, Yates,” I griped. “You make worrisome gateways. That’s why you’re not allowed to keep your talisman.”

  He pouted. “I don’t mean to.”

  “Doesn’t matter whether you intend to or not. They’re still dangerous.” I mounted the first of the steps to the landing now, keeping myself close to the wall. “And I, for one, do not look forward to letting you do your thing again. Your weird, scary thing.”

  “The Seeker Brand knows you are not dangerous,” said Bub to Carson. “You’re like a big fluffy clawkspuwr.”

  Carson: “A what?”

  “A clawkspuwr,” Bub repeated, as if that made things any clearer.

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  “Me neither,” said Clay.

  “You don’t have those on Earth?” At the blank looks and Heidi’s shake of her head, Burbondrer explained: “Clawkspuwr are feathered with soft down, about the size of two of my kind put together. Very patient creatures, unless pushed. Then they will eat you out of spite.”

  Heidi’s face twisted in a frown as she assessed Carson. “I don’t see it.”

  “Nor will you,” said Bub, “until it is too late.”

  I cut in. “None of this is helping deal with the issue of Burnton and the Overson crypt key he just stole.”

  “Or the second key,” said Clay.

  “There are two?” asked Heidi, eyebrows raised. She huffed. “Of course. Because everything comes in pairs in this line of work.”

  “Threes, technically,” said Carson. “The crypt is the third part, with … what’s actually in there?”