Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (32 page)

Finally, I opened my eyes to a pink-golden dawn. As the sun rose slowly over the Caribbean sea, Daniel and I walked slowly around the deck, taking inventory of who had survived.

Gyrod was there, and nearly unblemished. In fact, during the night while we were collapsed, or lay dying, he went silently around deck pulling crew out of immediate danger, or nursing those he knew how to help. He was now sitting next to a large chest he had pulled up from below deck, and was trying desperately to dry himself with cloth from it, for fear of rust.

The two Imperial Guards had survived, although one had massive burns to his face and shoulders, and the other had one eye that would never open again.

And speaking of cyclopses, Mongrel had been so drunk below deck that the impact left him fairly uninjured, although his smell hinted that he had been sick on himself. This might have happened before the fall, however, knowing him.

Timony, the little clockwork doll was there as well. Much of her skin had been burnt off, and she was terribly broken, but she could still speak. Hopefully, she could be fixed.

Calgori had been picked up down the beach while Lilith and I talked. He’d been below deck during the fall. When he saw the deck and sails set ablaze, he warned as much of the crew as he could, and then managed to stow himself in a sea chest of uniforms before we fell. Jean Paul pulled him alive, but unconscious, from the box and carried him on deck. When he woke he looked and moved much like the older Calgori I had known.

We saw no more of the Grand Admiral’s Navy that month. My guess is he had seven ships at Tulum City. The
Ophelia
had incapacitated the first as they rescued me, and the final six were severed as the
Ophelia
fell into the seas. It would take the Admiral himself a good long time to get to any Naval bases he might have, and that bought us our escape.

“Gyrod,” I asked, thinking. “What is that you are drying yourself with?”

Gyrod stood, and pulled yard after yard of white canvas from the massive sea chest, looking at it questioningly.

Mongrel stepped up and, holding his head in one hand he said, “Wha’ on god’s earth is that gold’n man doing with the spare sails???”

I looked at the sails, and then looked up at the mast. When the
Ophelia
had been retro fitted for air travel, the mast had been left intact. During all our travels, it stood up through the airbag, aiding the lanyards in holding our ship aloft. It towered above us, charred, but strong. This ship that had once been a sailing ship, would be a sailing ship again! At least until we were able to get her aloft. It was time to rebuild her, and to raise sail.

“So where next?” I asked the small gathering on deck.

“We best not go ashore,” said one of the Imperial Guards. “Least ways, not for a while. I say we head north east, and try to come across one of the flotillas of the Sea Gypsies. They’ll help us repair and set things right.”

“And we’ll need to get word to Kristina and the girls,” said Daniel. “Tanner is keeping an eye on them in Isla Aether. It’s a little mountaintop Skyland in the Rockies. Beautiful place. The docks stretch out into the skies, and the whole town sits in a sea of clouds like an island in the sky.”

“Something still needs to be done about the three Change Cage Cities,” said Calgori. He had slowly woken now, and was listening.

The Emperor was dead, and the world was free from his Mankind-hating agenda. It’s hard to judge a man who had accomplished so much for the sake of the world. Mankind had paid a dear price for the world’s salvation, perhaps too dear a price, but the world had been saved.

It came down to scars and scabs. The Emperor had deep scars because of the guilt he felt for the actions of his family. That drove him to vast accomplishments. I myself had scars from my childhood, and in a need to be important, a need to be strong, and heroic. This, too, drove me to making a huge impact on the world and its history. In doing so, I and my crew had
removed
the scars of Mankind. That weakened us as a race, and allowed Victor to take over. I think scars are necessary, without them there is no strength.

Now the Emperor was dead, and in the Emperor’s place a new tyrant had risen. This new tyrant is perhaps the true villain of the story, since it would appear that it was he who executed most reputedly villainous plots, in the Emperor’s name. Perhaps the Emperor had never given the orders to kill, but mearly asked for balance and turned his head away while his Grand Admiral did the killing. I’m afraid I don’t know the full story of Lilith and Victor, but maybe there will be a book one day to tell it.

We drifted off into the sunset, not knowing what we’d meet on the seas, or if they contained beasts as vicious and hungry as the ones on land. We didn’t know if we’d get back into the skies, but today’s story has been told, and we were too tired to be concerned about what happened next.

The only thing left to do was to make sure Doctor Calgori got into the Emperor’s old balloon and travel back to 1890s. After our fall, his memory was starting to fail him. Hopefully, he would have the mental resources to create the Chrononautilus. I was sure he could.

THE END