The King of the Skies

by Robert J. Crane

  23

  We were onboard the Velocity, during the final approach to Brynn Overson’s crypt.

  “That’s it?” asked Carson.

  I nodded. “Uh huh.”

  We were arrayed on deck, joined by a complement of pirate guards who had been kind enough not to disarm us this time, on Burnton’s insistence.

  Sky the yellow-brown color of sulfur swirled past us as the Velocity streaked through the cloud layer. Wedge-shaped to the front, it sliced through the atmosphere as it moved, channeling displaced air around its sides and through the massive, bulbous engines to the ship’s rear.

  It was a marvel of engineering, honestly, sleek if a little over the top.

  Which put it in stark contrast to the hulking construction we approached now.

  Brynn Overson’s crypt was a huge, floating metal cuboid the color of soot, held aloft amidst the frenzied Harsterra cloudscape. It bobbed in and out of view as we drew closer, sometimes only a corner of it poking through, others a wider swath. A crenelated wall contained a more intricate structure deeper inside. The swirling mass of clouds made it impossible to see, though.

  “Why would you put a crypt in a place like this?” Carson wondered.

  “He was one of the greatest adventurers of our kind,” I said. “He unraveled untold mysteries, beat uncountable challenges. He was a legend.”

  “So he encased himself in a square of carbonite miles across?”

  “It’s a temple challenge,” I went on, “one he left here for another Seeker to best, in a hostile world that humans never occupied during his lifetime.”

  “Do you know that?” asked Heidi. “Or is it conjecture?”

  “Conjecture,” I said, shrugging. “Doesn’t seem totally unreasonable though.”

  “What do you think it’s like inside?” Clay asked.

  I touched a hand to my pocket. Snug inside, wrapped in layers of tissue—a last-minute protective measure—was the spell Lady Angelica had given us. “You’ll see.”

  I shot a glance across the deck, to Burnton and Barnes. They watched too, eyes hungry. That smug grin had returned to Burnton’s face since my agreement with him late last night—though Harsterra’s spin made it two full days ago for him and his men. Carson had suggested that “maybe that’s how he’s managed to get so much done already,” before Heidi gently reminded him that the same amount of time had passed for us as Burnton; their days were just about half as long.

  Now, I wondered if the crew had their own spells—or, if not, if perhaps their strange boots might be part of Burnton’s plan the for upcoming arena. Bulky things, not like their footwear every other time we’d met, the boots came halfway up the shin and glowed with lights down the outer sides. I wasn’t sure how they worked yet, but it figured that Burnton would have something up his sleeve. I wasn’t going to luck out and have Burnton come up short at this stage in the game.

  Though it would be a very nice bone for the universe to throw me at this juncture, because the fact was, I was not confident about this. At all.

  For all that I’d wanted to knock Burnton down a few pegs, it’d been me who’d fallen to a lower rung.

  A much lower rung.

  He caught me watching. Grinning more widely, he patted Barnes on the shoulder, and strode across.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Carson spluttered. Heidi scowled at Burnton’s boots. “Where’d you get those ugly things?”

  He tapped his nose, wearing a winning smile. “Can’t be divulging the details of my contacts to just anyone.” To me: “I trust you’ve devised your own way through the arena?”

  I ignored him, instead asking, “You know how we get in there?”

  “Of course I know. We’ve scouted it out many times. The great Mr. Overson was kind enough to provide docking access for our ships on the north-facing wall.” He peered at me down his nose with a faintly amused look which I couldn’t place the source of.

  “That’s where the door is?” I said.

  “Deeper,” said Burnton. “Don’t worry; my men and I have mapped the accessible interior sections thoroughly. All that remains is the arena itself.”

  “Imagine tooling out your burial chamber as an arena,” Carson mused. “It’s so weird.”

  “I know,” said Burnton earnestly. “To think he could’ve had a statue erected, or a monument to his many achievements in life … a waste, really.” Puffing out his chest, he said, “I shan’t do the same, when my time comes. Not that I expect to need to. Doubtless there will be statues of me throughout the many lands I’ve touched before I’ve gone.”

  “So humble,” Heidi muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  They chatted idly, Burnton on our sidelines. Carson asked nervous questions, probing for information as he so often did, with a relentless curiosity more common to young children, not full-grown adults. Burnton entertained him with much back-patting (his, not Carson’s, in case that wasn’t obvious).

  I listened quietly without really taking it in. I kept focused instead on the growing blot of metal dipping in and out of view.

  I wasn’t the only quiet one. Heidi and Bub joined in Carson’s conversation here and there, mostly when he turned to them for some input or Heidi had to make some snarky remark, but Clay was quiet too. A small part of me wondered what was going on in his mind behind that slightly tight expression he wore … but I didn’t ask.

  Closer we went. Deep in the thick clouds now, we found ourselves half-blinded, but the Velocity surged through, the skies clearing immediately ahead of us-

  And there was the crypt.

  Wider than my field of vision, it was hard to get a grasp of its real size, especially like this, glimpsing it only in slices. Nor could I get a sense of just how far away it was, because smaller and smaller details kept becoming visible. Each time I thought we had discerned the smallest, a few minutes later they revealed themselves to be much segments of outer wall much bigger than I’d realized, with even finer features to discern.

  Then, all at once, it was as if we’d passed through a waterfall. Cloud drowned us, and then suddenly we were through—and the Overson crypt loomed just a short distance away, no longer obscured by the sulfur-colored cloud.

  A huge docking door was open in the outer wall. Many times bigger than the Velocity, I was momentarily floored by its scale.

  Burnton rubbed his palms together excitedly. “In we go!”

  The outer wall came closer—and then we passed through. The docking hole was ridiculous in size. Three ships the size of the Velocity could have flown in abreast of each other and still had plenty of space.

  The compressed steel of the wall was dozens of meters thick … and then it passed as we penetrated, and I stared out, ready to take in these first, outermost layers of Brynn Overson’s final resting place.

  “What the—?”

  Crypts, I’d thought, were bedecked in fineries and riches, maybe statues or murals to represent the deceased’s life. That was especially true of figures such as Brynn, whose burial chamber should have put even the grandest efforts of the ancient Egyptians to shame.

  Instead, we looked out over what resembled a factory. Only it was decayed and desolate. Walkways to either side of the long docking chamber were broken down, gaps missing in them. Ahead, a kind of industrial city spread before us, only instead of a skyline of tall buildings, towers spewed smog up and into the atmosphere. Brownish-red patches of rust bloomed across every surface.

  “This seems … weird,” said Carson quietly.

  “I thought you said this is the Overson crypt,” said Heidi.

  “It … it is,” I said, but my voice wobbled. “The journal said so.”

  “This looks like an industrial plant,” said Carson.

  Clay pursed his lips, looking from left to right.

  “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “I think … we’re here.” He shrugged, frowning. “So Brynn’s prize …
I guess this is where it’ll be.”

  “What is the prize?” Heidi asked, rounding on me. “Seeing as we need to know what we’re looking for.”

  “Right.” To Burnton: “Little privacy while I fill them in?”

  “Perfectly acceptable.” He snapped off a jaunty salute and strolled away. “We’ll be docked in two minutes, or thereabouts, so make it quick, if you can. I’ll wait, of course, as we agreed; but I’m sure you’re all keen to press on inside this … crypt.”

  And off he went, back to his clustered crew.

  “Spill,” said Heidi. “What’re we looking for?”

  “It’s a silver plate,” I said. “Called the Lamina Ambroscus. Which means …”

  “Something about immortality,” said Carson.

  I nodded. “The Plate of Immortality, specifically.”

  “Oh. Right. Because it’s a plate.”

  “You got it.”

  “And this plate allows what, exactly?” Heidi asked.

  I squinted. “Um. Immortal life? Maybe?”

  “No way,” Carson breathed.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” said Heidi. “If it did, why wouldn’t Brynn Overson use it?”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  “Because he’s dead. Mira says this is his crypt. This … weird … factory thing.”

  “Maybe he faked it, though. Maybe he pulled an Elvis, or a Tupac, or—”

  “Both of those people actually are dead.”

  “We’re getting off base,” said Clay. “The Plate of Immortality is somewhere inside. We need to get it. That’s the only important thing right now.”

  “Plate of Immortality,” Carson scoffed. “What’s next? The Fork of Gluttony?” At the flat looks shot at him by the rest of us, he covered his laugh with a cough, then cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry. Just thought … there’s a kind of dinner theme going on.”

  “Silver plate,” said Heidi, “probably doesn’t let us live forever. Got it. Anything else we need to know?”

  I shook my head. “Just stick close so the spell takes effect, or we’re …”

  “Up a creek without a paddle,” Clay put in for me.

  “That,” I agreed.

  “It’s a specific type of creek,” said Heidi. “A—”

  “Got it, thanks. Bub, you good here?”

  He nodded. “Burbondrer of Ocklatojsh will overcome the Seeker Overson’s last challenge.” And he slammed a meaty fist on his chestplate, between the spikes that stuck out in all directions.

  “We’re waiting,” called Burnton. “Do you need another five to hash this thing out between you?”

  “We’re good,” I replied.

  “Excellent.”

  “Smarmy idiot,” Heidi complained, folding her arms. “I can’t wait to crush that smile out of existence.”

  “You’re not the only one,” I murmured.

  We clambered off the Velocity and onto the dock itself.

  It was ramshackle. Presumably made of the same compressed steel as Burnton’s ship, so as to endure the buffeting effect of the atmosphere for countless eons, corrosion had set in. Holes were pocked through every surface, some small and uneven, many more square, where full panels had given out and fallen into Harsterra. In some places, the rust had eaten through so thoroughly that metal had simply disintegrated, forming piles of debris that wind had blown into corners.

  Burnton led the way. The dock’s walkways filtered toward a wider gangway, covered in vats. Viewing windows pulsed with a faded green glow, like the paint they put on the hands of children’s wristwatches so they’d glow in the dark.

  “Ominous,” Heidi muttered.

  “Nothing good glows green,” I said.

  “She doesn’t mean that,” Carson assured Bub.

  “Bub doesn’t glow,” I replied.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, I guess not.”

  Another wall separated the dock from the interior of the arena. An archway was cut into it. What looked like hinges marked where gates might once have been. Now, they were gone.

  More decay. Channels had been carved throughout the debris, possibly by wind, possibly by the footsteps of Burnton’s crew, or any others who’d visited this place in the past. Probably both.

  “It’s a peculiar place, isn’t it,” Burnton mused from across the way, where he led Barnes and the rest of his crew.

  “I’ve seen weirder.”

  Which wasn’t necessarily true. Plenty of places were weird, but it was hard to grade them. How did you compare a forest of glass trees and blind, English-speaking horror dogs to clockwork butlers trundling around a Chelsea home? It was all weird; just weird in different flavors.

  This particular flavor, though … if there was any one thing I could say was truly weirder than the rest, Brynn Overson having set up his crypt like a decaying factory might have been it.

  Of course, it wasn’t decaying when he’d built it, I thought. Well, probably not. But it might have been. Crumbling industrial ruins hung in the sky of an inhospitable gas giant might’ve been his favored strangeness.

  The door into the interior facility loomed. Some ten feet tall, a keyhole almost two inches around beckoned us.

  “Your key,” Burnton said.

  I reached into my pocket, withdrew it. Handed it over.

  “Mine,” Burnton said to Barnes, who produced it from somewhere and handed it to him.

  I’d never seen the first half, not up close. It wasn’t much different than mine: the remainder of the wings missing from the bow on mine, and the blade and cuts to complete it.

  Burnton held one in each hand, shoulder level, slightly wide, as if this was some grand display for all to see …

  “Not at all gratuitous,” Heidi murmured.

  And then he pressed them together, joining them.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked me.

  “I’m ready. All of us are. Right, guys?”

  “Right,” my friends agreed.

  “Wonderful.” Burnton slid the key into the lock. “Because you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  A smattering of laughter went up from his crew.

  I steeled myself against it. True, perhaps. But I’d show them.

  Burnton twisted the key.

  The locking mechanism released with a click.

  The door opened—

  As so began the final chase.

  24

  “Huddle up,” I ordered as Burnton’s people sprinted ahead.

  “Quick,” said Heidi. “They’re getting away!”

  I took the spell vial from my pocket, tossing aside the tissue I’d housed it in for protection. A breath of wind whipped it away and past the doors.

  The safe thing to do was break off the wax and unstopper it.

  But Burnton and his men had already bolted, only the last stragglers streaming behind us.

  So I gripped both ends and snapped it in two.

  The red mist swirled. Twisting, it widened into a smeared arc, fading—

  Then I inhaled, tasting it in the back of my throat. Pungent and cloyingly tangy, it flooded my lungs, filling every little alveolus with its perfume-y taste. I had the momentary sensation of not being able to take in oxygen, like I was being smothered, or drowning, a layer of water blocking the air out—

  And then I could breathe again, and the taste was gone.

  “That was unpleasant,” Carson said. He coughed.

  “Tasted like Parma Violets,” said Clay.

  “What are—?” Carson began.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Let’s go!”

  And we surged ahead into the industrial complex.

  The first corridor was wide and reasonably pristine. A couple of vats, with their strangely luminescent contents, had been left here. Windows in their sides were smeared with dust and dirt, giving the glass a discolored appearance. Inside, something either misty or wet—it was impossible to tell—churned, glowed faintly green.

  Then we rounded a corner, a
nd the chaos began.

  Panels were missing in the floor and walls. All offset from each other, it was possible to go around … but only if you could walk on walls.

  Which, thanks to Lady Angelica, we could do.

  I bounded ahead, leading the charge. The left wall was most intact, and I jumped, putting a bit of sideways momentum into my feet as I kicked off.

  It was a schoolkid maneuver, the sort of thing a boy might’ve seen in an action movie and tried to replicate, jumping at a wall and bouncing off of it again with a foot, looking not even remotely cool in the process.

  But as I leapt, the effects of the spell kicked in … and the world turned. I pivoted about a center somewhere just below my neck, floor swinging around so it was the wall to the right of me—and landed on the left wall.

  I sprinted, feet glued to it, like gravity had changed direction by ninety degrees.

  “No, no …” muttered Carson.

  “Just do it!” Heidi shouted—

  “Ohhh …”

  She grabbed his hand, and they leapt together. Carson moaned—and then they, too, landed just behind me.

  I was already vaulting toward the ceiling as a new hole to the atmosphere drew near—or what had, moments ago, been the right-hand wall in this arena.

  “Oh, geez!” Carson cried.

  “It’s easy!” said Heidi.

  “This is just like Inception! Or The Matrix!”

  “You are such a nerd. We can walk on walls, and you’re thinking of sci-fi flicks you’ve geeked out over on some messageboard.”

  “Can we walk on the ceiling?”

  “Yes, but—Carson!”

  I cast a look behind me.

  He’d broken away from Heidi and jumped for the ceiling—which was now right of me, I think? It was getting difficult to tell. Even harder with the five of us moving through the corridor, me on one wall, Heidi and Bub on another, Carson powering down his own, and Clay bringing up the rear on the last surface.

  “This is so cool!”

  “Watch where you’re going!” Heidi belted. “If you fall out of here, you are going to die!”

  “I’ve got this!” Carson must’ve leapt again, landing close behind me with a heavy thud that he could’ve passed off as Bub. “This is amazing!”